Just to put it in to perspective... the last place team in the EPL earns more money than the 3rd place team in La Liga. And we're still one of the top two leagues in the world.

Why is it disgraceful? TV Money is distributed however the owners want to, the most popular teams attract more audience so they are given more money.

@Tuanis

It's about equality. English distribution is extremely fair. I believe the top team gets something like 80-90 Million pounds now with the new deal in place, and the bottom team gets about 60 Million. The ratio is 4:3. In Spain, the ratio from top to bottom used to be 13:1. That's absurd. It basically guarantees the duopoly between Madrid and Barca. They may not have a duopoly in the league right now, but they sure do financially.

@Dyn: I agree the gap is a bit too much. However, in England almost every stadium is full when the home team play, you cant say that in Spain... Real and Barca attract everyone to watch not only because of the clubs, but of their stars... some people turn their TV on just because of Ronaldo or Messi or Iniesta... I dont hink any English team has that kind of star who can attract that much audience.

Beside, may be it's culture and weather too. In bad weather countries like England, people watch TV more often when the weather is bad and it's always bad... :D no offense. And in Spain, people just go outside and do stuffs... (party too much that effect their economy too). But in Italia something else happens so I dont say it's always the case.

At the end of the day they need to look after their clubs, yeah Barca and Madrid are the big attractions but without the others there is no league, La Liga is not a competitive league because the rich (Barca,Madrid) get richer while the others feed off the scraps and struggle financially, maybe with a more even distribution the league would become stronger as a whole, I'd like to see how the money is distributed in Germany, France and Italy to compare.

Equality doesn't necessarily mean justice or fairness. If the difference of audience between the 1st and last place in La Liga is about 13:1 then why wouldnt the money they get for TV rights about the same? Im not saying I agree or disagree with this "issue" but its just another way of looking at things. Spain just has a more liberal Football economy.

@mascot +1
@tuanis

Hmmm it kills off competition .... you do know that club's performance on the pitch also depends on financial stability of the club ? For example , When La Liga players have to worry about getting paid this week/month ... it is a disgrace . There are no such thing occurring in any English professional division .

Ofcourse you as Manchester united fan would enjoy La Liga model of distribution ( well Chelsea as a club now would also would enjoy) , but for the sake of the league and English football it should not be our model and that is completely wrong way to run the league .

And It is not liberal economy . It is called monopolized economy !!

Marcus is right, it is a simply monopoly on all the money distributed from TV rights. Disgraceful. This is why I always say that Spain's financial system in football should be more like England's, if not identical. F**k the playing style, I just want the financial system in place.

All to all and @mascot here is an answer about Bundesliga and partially about other leagues .

At the end of last month the German Bundesliga made an announcement that largely flew under the radar.

The change will come into effect for the 2014/15 season and it means that at the start of each season clubs will know exactly how much money will come their way from Bundesliga media rights. Up to now the final pay out is impacted by the finish in the current season and that adds an unknown to the budgeting and planning process.

The change means that for 2014/15 the distribution of money will be calculated on performances going back five seasons to 2010 and up to 2014.

Although the Bundesliga operates a centralized selling and distribution model it is quite different from others in approach. In fact, when each of the major centralized selling models (Premier League, Ligue 1, Serie A and Bundesliga) are considered more closely you realize that all vary and all have diverse approaches that deliver different outcomes.

The Bundesliga model covers the first and second divisions and uses a points system that is weighted towards the most recent season and will now cover the previous five seasons. The points system then places each team in a distribution league table which then dictates who gets what.

The pay outs as they relate to the “league” are pre-set and are designed to reward the number one team with twice as much as the team finishing in eighteenth spot.

The allocation of international rights revenue adds a few more twists including one that rewards teams based on their contribution the Bundesliga’s UEFA coefficient. This expands the ratio to 2.1 or 2.2 to 1 depending on the specifics.

Methodology applied in Serie A and Ligue 1 produces a much larger gap between the first and last teams.

Serie A takes into consideration no less than six weighted factors.

• 40% of the money is distributed equally across the 20 Serie A teams- The number of supporters (yes, Serie A attempts each year to objectively count the number of followers of each team) impacts 25% of the mode- Results over the last 5 seasons drive 15%- Historical results another 10%- 5% comes from the previous season’s league position- The remaining 5% is based on the population of each teams’ community
  A major flaw in the Serie A approach is how the distribution of money reinforces existing inequities. Thirty percent of the model essentially duplicates two factors (supporters and community) that almost certainly offer greater match-day and commercial revenue streams.

There again, Serie A is relatively new to the centralized selling model and the titling of the model towards the larger clubs may turn out to be a transition between what was before, a free-for-all selling model.

From first-to-last Serie A generally produces a ratio of over 4 to 1.

Ligue 1 in France also runs a high ratio of a little over 3.5 to 1.

Three elements drive the French model:

• 50% of media rights split evenly over 20 teams- 20% is based on audience from televised matches- 30% is performance driven with current performance heavily weighted
  Of course the greatest degree of inequity is found in Spain and in La Liga. Although La Liga is inching towards a centralized selling model (implementation three of four years from now?) it is not easy to shift gears when rights have historically been sold on a team-by-team basis.

The “let-them-eat-cake” model means that Barcelona and Real Madrid receive over 45% of the TV revenues generated by La Liga. The first-to-last ratio is a staggering 11 to 1.

The Premier League produces the greatest degree of equity with its model. The calculation is split between domestic and international.

The distribution of international rights is a simple as it could possibly be – every club shares equally. The allocation has on occasion drawn criticism from clubs such as Liverpool that argued that international rights are driven by the popularity of a handful of teams and that the allocation method should be revisited and weighted more heavily in favor of the big clubs.

The counter to that simplistic argument is that the entire Premier League inventory is made available to overseas buyers and as such an even distribution is logical.

In terms of domestic rights the Premier League model takes into consideration three factors:

• 50% is shared equally-25% is based on finishing position in the league (one position will be worth close to $2.5M this season)- 25% is derived from the numbers of times each team has appeared on games televised domestically.
  The net effect is a first-to-last ratio in the Premier League is around 1.6 to 1.

Also interesting ....

i know, but this isn't exactly news... still need a change

no wonder most of the time its a two horse race, if they evenly distribute the money, La liga would become wayy better

PL is a one horse race so money is not everything, What did Atletico last year no English midtable team did it in England since Barclays started.
The game is more than just about money, its on the pitch that you achieve or not, also its also about formation, Spain youth are mad about playing Football not just watching it, the amount of talented youngster is incredible and many teams like Sevilla, Bilbao, Sociedad...etc has been able to produce skilful players, in England except Southampton most of clubs only buy players and lately only foreign players.
The Spanish players represent +60% of the whole players while PL has only 29% of home grown, adding to this that Spain has 73 Spanish professional playing outside la Liga, at the opposite, the number of English playing in a foreign League is close to none ( Except MLS for aging players ).
Yes looking to the numbers, the sharing isnt equitable for competition but should just give heroic seasons like Atleti one more appreciated, its not about money, its about quality on the field, brilliant forming and scouting, and the motivation to achieve.
But this doesnt mean that Spanish teams arent competitive on the field ( they arent in the market ), in fact La liga this year is more competitive than PL despite the TV shares equity there, i wonder sometimes if Bilbao had QPR budget and not their transfer home grown rules where they would be ranked in Europe. Much higher probably...

The difference here is the English cubs have money to spend on players that they think will improve their squad whether they are homegrown or not, Spanish teams don't have that luxury and therefore have to rely on homegrown talent, the National team will benefit from it though.If the teams in Spain had the kind of resources to spend that the teams in the EPL get then they would buy players to improve squads and not just promote from the youth academy every season. Look at Madrid and Barca these powerhouses had the finances to spend millions on players, Barca are have a great academy that produces great players, but they didn't have anything to replace Puyol, Valdes, Sanchez so they bought Suarez, Neymar, Ter Stegen, if the "smaller" teams had the finances available to them to splash out on players then i'm sure that % of homegrown talent in La Liga would drop somewhat

The fact is that the average home grown has a good level, Hull City cant have Suarez or Neymar anyway.
If you ignore pitch reality and stick on club budget you will get a headache, Atletic Madrid has 30% of QPR budget while there is no match in the field in term of quality players, attractivity, coaching....

No that is true and a valid point.But imagine how much the squads would improve in La Liga if every team had the same budget as QPR, if they weren't walking a financial tightrope from month to month then the football as attractive as it is would surely only get better, more money to the teams equals better facilities, better coaching, bigger squads.If they could they would branch out and not just rely on homegrown, i'm not saying its a bad thing because its not, giving the younger players the chance will only lead to good things for Spain as a whole, but a bit of equality in how they distribute the money would go a long way to helping the smaller less fortunate teams.

Yeah, i agree that things could be much better with more liquidities, but many believe in Sportive rise who is directly linked in benefits, Barça and Atletico lately has been getting more money due to their sportive success ( which is everything imo ), the teams performence makes the club bigger not the owner or TV shares.
Those arguments are reducing the worth of this League and their teams : Silva, Aguero, Torres, Diego Costa, Falcao, Fabregas, Alexis Sanchez, Yaya Toure, Cazorla, Navas, Ozil, Di Maria, Herrera, Mata, Filipe Luis.Michu, Soldado, De Gea, Rangel, Amat, Ayoze, Bojan, Muniesa, Adrian, Robles, Luna, Monreal, Arteta, Moreno, Suso, Manquillo, Jose Enrique, Montero, Bellerin, Walters, Dimichelis, Vargas, Etoo, Caballero, Negredo and many more all came from this supposed poor league.

I think you should ask the opposite question, Why PL teams cant get competitive while they have huge budgets ? Why Southampton ( The best formator club in England ) sold most of their players, changed the coach and half of the team and still did better than some stable healthy clubs economically ?
I think Spanish are doing quite good despite their limited budget, at the opposite, some English teams are underachieving and its really weird, something is going wrong right there.

ahhh again @tiki ? at things that you said @tiki . We are 11 games into season and you call it one horse race :D You probably been waiting for this moment all your life , so just in case it does not change you decide to say it now :D

You just hate to loose arguments do you ? Me too , but I let it go when I do . I understand you live in the "La Bitter Town" but this thread is not about La Liga vs EPL .

@mascot save yourself a time and read this thread .... I think we chewed the crap out of this whole La Liga vs EPL argument on this thread :

http://footyroom.com/forum/football-talk/what-do-you-think-about-this-62906

Btw I will be happy to see Atletico keep on being success . However, I am pretty sure it will be same story like Dortmund .

Hate to say I said so ... wait I actually love it :D We had this argument two years ago . I and few other members were saying that Dortmund will go back to where it came from and will loose it is best players . Well it is evident now . They are battling relegation and will loose some more of their core players next transfer window .