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Real Madrid and Barcelona neck-and-neck as world’s most valuable football brands in the face of COVID-19
- Real Madrid remain world’s most valuable football brand, but Barcelona narrow the gap to just €6 million
- COVID-19 causes total brand value of top 50 clubs to decrease for the first time in 6 years – €751 million or 3.7% is knocked off
- English clubs dominate the ranking with six brands in top 10 and 19 in top 50
- Liverpool inches two spots up into 4th place, following historic Premier League win
- Bundesliga’s 1. FC Köln is this year’s fastest-growing brand, followed by Leicester City and RB Leipzig – all recording over 40% growth
- Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium takes top spot in Buro Happold’s Venue Performance Rating
Real Madrid remain the most valuable football club brand in the world for 2020, according to the latest edition of the Brand Finance Football Annual. Boosted by winning the LaLiga title for the first time since 2017, the club retained its position at the top of the table in the football industry, but against a backdrop of economic and social disruption, caused primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic, Real Madrid’s brand value has declined by 14% to €1,419 million.
Real Madrid’s disappointing on-pitch performance prior to 2019-20, which saw an earlier-than-normal exit from the UEFA Champions League in 2018-19 and a second successive season adrift of LaLiga champions Barcelona, eroded the club’s dominance of the Brand Finance ranking. The situation was exacerbated by COVID-19, along with a lack of stability around the management of the team. Barcelona, Real’s fierce rivals, are just €6 million behind Real with a brand value of €1,413 million, supported by strong and diverse revenue generation and continued domestic performance in Spain.
COVID-19 knocks off €751 million of brand value
Real Madrid is not the only club to see a drop in brand value this year. COVID-19 has caused the total value of the top 50 football brands to decrease for the first time in 6 years. Through its effect on the three main revenue streams – Matchday, Broadcasting, and Commercial – €751 million or 3.7% has been knocked off the cumulative brand value of the world’s top 50 most valuable football clubs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged professional football worldwide and across all levels. Matchday income for the 501 games remaining in the big 5 leagues dropped to zero, but it is often the smaller clubs and leagues which are more reliant on this revenue stream – in Scotland it makes up 43% of total revenue, compared to only 13% in England.
There have been some positive signs, as Southampton vs Manchester City on BBC broke the Premier League TV audience record with 5.7 million viewers, but the longer-term damage to the game’s economic structure has yet to be revealed.
Richard Haigh, Managing Director of Brand Finance, commented:
“Top-level football has been confronted with the largest existential threat since the Second World War. Loss of income, coupled with health concerns about mass gatherings, have raised question marks about the future of the industry and the financial resilience of clubs across all levels. The full damage of the COVID-19 crisis has yet to unfold and it is not inconceivable there will be casualties in the form of club bankruptcies and changes in ownership.”
Despite the huge implications of COVID-19 for football clubs and their financial results, the majority of the brand value is secured by the clubs’ long-term future – provided they can survive the initial shock. For example, only 21% of Real Madrid’s brand value is delivered by the next five years’ financial results.
Premier power
Real Madrid and Barcelona are followed by a cluster of English Premier League clubs in the Brand Finance Football Annual 2020 ranking, with Manchester United in 3rd position after their brand value fell by 11% to €1,314 million. Liverpool, who won their first league title since 1990 in runaway style, are in 4th spot jumping above Manchester City in terms of brand value, rising from €1,191 million in 2019 to €1,262 million, a 6% increase. Chelsea dropped one place in the table to 8th after their value fell for the fourth consecutive year to €949 million. This was arguably due to the club being absent from the UEFA Champions League and also suffering a transfer ban after being charged with breaking Financial Fair Play Regulations.
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Boomerang Partners
Overtime begins: Boomerang Partners launches the final stage of the Golden Boomerang Awards 2026
The Golden Boomerang Awards 2026 by Boomerang Partners is moving into its decisive phase. The third and final stage of the tournament – titled “Overtime” – will run from 20 July to 31 August. It marks the last opportunity for participants to reshape the leaderboard and compete for the season’s main prize – an exclusive private dinner with a football legend in September 2026.
Overtime mechanics: points allocation
To intensify competition during the final stretch, Boomerang Partners is introducing an updated scoring system. From now on, affiliate teams will earn 3 points for every FTD generated on any partner brand from the Agency’s clients’ portfolio. In the previous stage, participants received 3 points for each sports FTD and 1 point for each online casino FTD. Now, the value of all FTDs is identical.
Overtime mechanics: performance boosts
Within the Overtime stage of the Golden Boomerang Awards 2026, a set of performance boosts remains active. These mechanics give participating teams the opportunity not only to catch up but also to overtake the leaders.
- Welcome Boost – x2 points for the first 14 days after entering the stage
- Lucky Five – +5 points for achieving 10 Casino FTDs per week
- Last Minutes Winner – x3 points during the final 7 days of Overtime
Martin Černý, CEO at Boomerang Partners said: “Overtime brings the Golden Boomerang Awards 2026 to its most competitive stage. At this point in the tournament, every result can influence the leaderboard, and teams still have the opportunity to improve their positions. We expect the final weeks to bring strong competition and determine the final standings.”
A final stretch where every day counts
With fewer than 40 days left in the GBA 2026, the competition enters its most volatile phase. The leaderboard remains open, and even small performance shifts can significantly alter final standings. Participants are now entering a stage where strategy, timing, and consistent activity define the outcome – and where the final push may determine the season’s ultimate winner.
Overtime has begun. TIME TO WIN THE TITLE.
About Boomerang
Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global marketing agency offering a wide range of services. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards – a global tournament for affiliate teams. More than 400 affiliate teams participated in the second season of the tournament in 2025. Martin Černý – Boomerang Partners’ CEO since June 2025.
The Agency’s clients’ portfolio contains brands offering affiliate and entertainment services across multiple markets in compliance with local regulations. These products provide incentive programs and 24/7 multilingual support.
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GR8_TECH
The World Cup Is Over. GR8_TECH Opens “The Locker Room” to Count What It Was Worth
The trophy has been lifted. Now comes the most interesting part for operators: counting the revenue, assessing what worked, learning from what didn’t, and deciding what to change before the next betting event.
On Thursday, August 20, at 4:00 p.m. CEST, GR8_TECH will host “The Locker Room: World Cup Numbers”, a closed-door benchmarking session created to help operators make sense of their tournament results and see how their performance stacked up against the room and the wider market.
Led by Dinos Doxiadis, Head of Sportsbook Business at GR8_TECH, the session will combine anonymized benchmarks with in-depth post-World Cup platform data on margin, player behavior, retention, and peak-load performance. It isn’t a tournament recap, but a working session built around deeper analysis than GR8_TECH releases publicly.
A First Look at the World Cup Numbers
Initial aggregated data from the GR8_TECH platform shows an average tournament margin of over 12%, alongside a significant increase in staking during the knockout stages.
Average stakes during the play-offs were 53% higher than during the group stage, while the average stake on the final was 89% above the tournament average.
Player interest was highly concentrated. Matches featuring Spain, Argentina, England, or France generated 42% of the total World Cup turnover. Argentina was the tournament’s most-bet-on team, accounting for 12.5% of all bets, although Spain finished only 0.09 percentage points behind Argentina by turnover.
The final also created one of the tournament’s most demanding operational moments. Within one minute of the final whistle, GR8_TECH’s platform settled more than half a million bets, demonstrating the level of processing performance required when a global audience reaches the same outcome simultaneously.
Inside The Locker Room, participants will examine what happened across:
- Live betting and bet builders
- Margin and staking dynamics
- Peak-load and settlement moments
- Acquisition compared with player reactivation
- Retention beyond the final whistle
- Unexpected geographic performance
- Operational, product, and campaign failures
- Priorities for the next major event
“The World Cup generates a huge amount of data, but the value comes from understanding what sits behind it,” said Dinos Doxiadis, Head of Sportsbook Business at GR8_TECH. “This session is about identifying the patterns operators might miss in their own reporting, challenging assumptions, and turning one month of World Cup activity into better decisions for future events.”
See How Your World Cup Stacked Up
Leave the session with anonymized benchmarks, exclusive GR8_TECH platform insights, and a clear view of where your World Cup performance led—or lagged—the market.
Turn the lessons into your next strategy. Join The Locker Room: World Cup Numbers on Thursday, August 20, at 4:00 p.m. CEST.
Register here to secure your place.
GR8_TECH. Platform for Champions
GR8_TECH is an award-winning provider, delivering high-performance sportsbook and iGaming solutions that empower operators to lead and win in competitive markets. GR8_TECH’s comprehensive portfolio includes the GREAT_TURNKEY and GREAT_CRYPTO TURNKEY solutions, GREAT_SPORTSBOOK, and GREAT_CASINO AGGREGATION.
With a geo-specific approach to solutions, a focus on practical innovations, and an operator-first mindset, GR8_TECH helps its clients achieve measurable results in their target markets quickly and efficiently. Trusted by top operators worldwide, GR8_TECH has over 100 successful cases and earned multiple recognitions, including the title of Platform Provider of the Year by SBC Awards 2025.
The post The World Cup Is Over. GR8_TECH Opens “The Locker Room” to Count What It Was Worth appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
ELA Games
ELA Games launches Age of Cleopatra slot with Hold & Win bonus
ELA Games has released a new slot, Age of Cleopatra, adding another ancient-Egypt theme title to its portfolio. The studio positions the game as a medium-volatility release and says it is available to demo now.
Age of Cleopatra runs on a 5×3 reel set-up with 25 paylines. ELA Games lists RTP at 93.75% / 95.73%, with Buy Bonus RTP at 93.8% / 95.9%. The maximum win is x5000, according to the company.
In the base game, a Collect Symbol gathers coin prizes visible on the screen, while “colored coins” charge pyramids that can unlock additional value, ELA Games said. The slot’s Hold & Win Bonus Game awards three respins by default (or four in an “Extra Respin” version), with modifiers tied to collected coins.
Features named by the studio include Multipliers, Extra Respins, and an Expand Grid mechanic that increases the layout from 3×5 to 5×5. ELA Games also states that multiple features can trigger at the same time.
“You can’t do justice to a legendary theme with just background art. Building a world around Cleopatra meant it had to feel truly authentic, a standard we apply to all our releases. At ELA Games, we consistently look beyond the visuals to craft an original universe, keeping storytelling through the mechanics at the center of our titles.” Marharyta Yerina, Managing Director at ELA Games.
The post ELA Games launches Age of Cleopatra slot with Hold & Win bonus appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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