Prize money? Didn't want it anyway... [Bonus Article]
Crikey. Looks like I have a lot of financials to write about! Part of me just wants to get it over with and cover everything in one article, but that would be 1) way too long and 2) way too painful. So let’s do it in instalments, three or so, focusing on the prize money of the 2025-26 season, Europa League qualification revenue, and finally the mercato budget.
“So, with the Champions League money now back, any capital gains registered this summer will be diverted to reinforcing the squad (i.e. the transfer budget) rather than plugging a hole”. On March 26, I wrote an article on our striker budget for the summer, and boy did that age well! I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who just assumed UCL was done, but it’s quite funny in hindsight.
In fairness to me and all of the others, the decline in the last weeks of the season was unlike anything we had seen before (or at least in a very long time). In the last eight games, Milan won just twice, drew once and lost the remaining five times. That’s bad in isolation, but even worse when you consider that they had only lost three league games prior to that run. That’s not just a decline, but a full-blown collapse.
Anyway, you’re not here to read my thoughts on the season finale. I don’t even want to read that, truth be told, so let’s focus on the heart of the matter: the financials. There are obviously many things to cover, as said, and I will do my best to do it swiftly (even if it means foregoing the one-article-a-week routine). I think the best place to start is the prize money revenue.
I actually covered some of this in a bonus article in December, following the Supercoppa Italiana and Coppa Italia exits. The league was the only remaining source of prize money and well, we all know how that ended. Just because I think I explained it nicely in that article, I will reuse some parts here (please forgive me!), but obviously with updated figures and text where needed.
No short version for this one, since you can just scroll down and see the fancy graphics for each competition!
Serie A
In times like these it’s easy for us to get blinded by what top four does to the accounts, i.e. qualifying for the Champions League, and rightfully so. I mean, based on what we collected during the 2024-25 season, we’re talking about €80m here and people are not wrong when they describe it as the difference-maker. Still, there are other revenue opportunties to consider too.
Since this article is about prize money, we need to talk about the domestic TV rights revenue. While half of it is equally shared between all clubs, the rest is actually distributed based on pillars such as final league position, historical results, stadium attendance, TV viewership and so on. In other words, there are ways for the clubs to influence just how much they get every season.
Those of you who read my bonus article on the Champions League revenue distribution will spot the similarities, and personally I think it’s a fair way of doing things (rather than just sharing everything equally). It might sound rough in some cases, but it would indeed be strange if a team like Cremonese got the same money as Milan. In fact, it wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Focusing on the final league position for a second, which is one of the things Milan can use to influence the revenue, the total pot for that specific pillar was roughly €100m this past season. It certainly looked good for a while there, but the Rossoneri ended up at just €8.1m as opposed to the €13.2m that second place would have brought. Of course, €5m isn’t loads, but every penny makes a difference.
Another thing that has to be considered is that one of the pillars for the TV rights revenue distribution is ‘results in the last five seasons’. In other words, with the 8th-place finish last season and the 5th-place finish this one, Milan have made matters worse for themselves in the future. This is a knock-on effect that absolutely shouldn’t be underestimated.
You could definitely say that in relation to their season target, which was finishing inside the top four, Milan ended up at the bottom of the barrel. You will find with the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana prize money that this was a bit of a theme for the season as a whole…
Coppa Italia
Considering how some hyped Massimiliano Allegri here, being the most decorated manager in the competition (5 wins), this was a huge disappointment. Of course, the 8th-place finish from the season before meant Milan weren’t one of the seeded teams, so they had to play the round of 16 away from home. Lazio got the better of them at the Olimpico, even if the game itself was quite even.
That said, the unseeded factor is not really an excuse, and I can’t imagine that the Milan management expected such an early exit. It’s much more reasonable to assume that they at least expected to reach the quarter-finals, budgeting accordingly. The outcome certainly stands in stark contrast to the previous campaign, in which they reached the final after knocking out Inter.
