The Rise of the Chief Commercial Officer in Sport

Sport has become a global business. The executives responsible for turning audiences, brands and sporting assets into sustainable commercial growth are becoming increasingly important.

For decades, commercial functions within sport were largely associated with sponsorship, advertising, hospitality, and ticketing. Those areas remain fundamental, but the commercial opportunity available to sporting organisations has become far more sophisticated.

Clubs, leagues, and sporting properties now have global audiences, valuable intellectual property, digital platforms, physical assets, content, data, and increasingly powerful brands to monetise.

As a result, the role of the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) is changing. The modern CCO is no longer simply responsible for selling sponsorship inventory.

Increasingly, they are responsible for understanding how an organisation can maximise the value of everything it owns, controls, and represents.

And the numbers suggest there is good reason for that shift.

Commercial revenue is becoming central to sporting organisations.

The European football market reached a record €38 billion in revenue during the 2023/24 season, according to Deloitte. Within the Premier League alone, clubs generated £6.3 billion, with commercial revenue exceeding £2 billion for the first time. Commercial revenue grew by 8% year-on-year, making it the primary driver of Premier League revenue growth.

That is an important change in the economics of sport.

Broadcasting remains hugely valuable, but clubs cannot necessarily rely on media rights growing indefinitely. Commercial revenue, on the other hand, can be developed through new partnerships, international markets, merchandising, hospitality, digital products, stadium utilisation and deeper relationships with fans.

Across Europe's "big five" leagues, commercial revenue reached €8 billion in 2023/24, increasing by €500 million in a single year. Deloitte attributed much of this growth to new sponsorship deals and the increasing use of stadiums beyond matchdays.

This is where the role of the CCO becomes particularly interesting.

The opportunity is no longer simply to sell what happens on matchday. It is to identify what else the organisation can commercially create.

From sponsorship to commercial ecosystems

A modern sporting organisation can be viewed as a collection of commercial assets.

There is the team and its athletes, but there is also the brand, the fanbase, the stadium, the media rights, the content library, the digital audience, the data, and the relationships it has with sponsors and commercial partners.

The challenge for a CCO is understanding how those assets can work together.

A stadium, for example, can generate revenue through much more than football matches.

Deloitte's latest Football Money League highlights how clubs are increasingly developing restaurants, hotels, breweries, concerts and other non-matchday experiences around their stadiums. The objective is to turn the stadium from a venue used periodically into a year-round commercial destination.

That requires a different type of commercial thinking.

The question becomes less about "What sponsorship can we sell?" and more about "What commercial ecosystem can we build?"

Real Madrid demonstrates the scale of the opportunity.

Real Madrid provides perhaps the clearest example of how far this commercialisation can go.

In the 2024/25 season, the club generated almost €1.2 billion in total revenue, becoming the first club to approach that level. Of that figure, €594 million came from commercial activities, with commercial revenue increasing by 23% year-on-year.

That €594 million is particularly significant because it demonstrates the scale of the opportunity beyond broadcasting and matchday income.

Real Madrid is not simply monetising football matches. It is monetising one of the world's most recognisable sporting brands through partnerships, merchandising, global audiences, and its broader commercial ecosystem.

For an organisation operating at this level, commercial strategy is not a supporting function.

It is a core component of the business strategy.

The opportunity is even greater in women's sport.

The changing role of the CCO is not confined to established men's sports.

Women's sport provides perhaps one of the most interesting commercial growth opportunities in the sector.

Deloitte forecasts that global women's elite sport revenues will reach at least US$3 billion in 2026, representing a 340% increase from 2022. Commercial revenue is expected to account for approximately 45% of the total, making it the largest revenue category.

What makes this particularly interesting is that women's sport isn't simply growing by replicating existing sporting models.

New leagues and organisations are being built with the opportunity to develop their own brands, audiences, partnerships, and commercial strategies from the outset.

That creates an unusual challenge for commercial leaders.

They are not always inheriting a mature commercial machine.

They are helping to build one.

The Women's Super League offers an example of the broader direction of travel. Aggregate WSL club revenue reached £65 million in 2023/24, a 34% increase on the previous season, with every club reporting more than £1 million in revenue for the first time.

As investment continues to enter women's sport, the ability to build sustainable commercial models will become increasingly important.

The CCO is becoming a strategic executive.

This evolution changes what organisations should expect from their commercial leadership.

The strongest CCOs increasingly need to understand far more than sponsorship.

They need to understand brand strategy, consumer behaviour, partnerships, digital, data, media, international growth, hospitality, fan engagement and revenue diversification. They also need the commercial judgement to understand which opportunities are genuinely valuable and which simply look attractive on paper.

That requires someone who can connect the different parts of an organisation.

A new sponsorship deal might generate immediate revenue, but can it also increase international awareness? Can it create new fan experiences? Can it introduce the organisation to a new customer demographic? Can it generate content? Can it open doors to other commercial partners?

The best commercial leaders are therefore increasingly thinking beyond individual transactions.

They are building relationships and ecosystems that compound in value.

Does the best CCO necessarily come from sport?

This raises an interesting question for sporting organisations and their investors.

As the commercial function becomes more sophisticated, does the ideal CCO necessarily need to have spent their entire career in sport?

Perhaps not.

Sport increasingly competes for consumer attention and discretionary spending with industries such as entertainment, retail, technology, and media. An executive who has successfully built a consumer brand, launched a digital proposition, entered international markets, or transformed a customer experience outside sport may bring capabilities that are highly transferable.

The sporting knowledge still matters.

But so does the ability to understand how modern consumers behave and how businesses create value around them.

For investors, this can be particularly important.

A sports acquisition may have significant untapped commercial potential, but identifying that potential is only the beginning. Someone still needs to develop the strategy, build the partnerships, create the proposition, and execute it.

The asset creates the opportunity. The leadership team must unlock it.

What this means for sports investors

For private equity firms, institutional investors and owners entering sport, commercial leadership should therefore be considered as part of the value-creation strategy, not simply as a functional hire.

The right CCO can help diversify revenue, strengthen the brand, improve partner value, develop new markets, and identify opportunities that may not have previously existed.

The wrong appointment can have the opposite effect.

Commercial opportunities can be missed. Partnerships can become transactional rather than strategic. Valuable audiences can remain under-monetised. And an organisation can find itself with a strong sporting product but an underdeveloped commercial model.

As sporting assets become more valuable and sophisticated, the executive team responsible for monetising those assets becomes increasingly important to the investment story.

The next generation of sports commercial leadership

The rise of the CCO reflects a wider change taking place across sport.

Sport is no longer simply about what happens on the pitch. It is about what happens around it,  the audience, the brand, the content, the technology, the venue, the partnerships and the commercial opportunities that surround the sport itself.

That means the next generation of sports CCOs will need to think differently.

They will need to be commercially ambitious, but also strategic. They will need to understand sport, but not be restricted by traditional sporting thinking. And they will need to see opportunities where others see existing assets.

Because the biggest commercial opportunity may not be the next sponsorship deal.

It could be the new business model that hasn't been created yet.

Sport is becoming a bigger business. The commercial leadership required to unlock it has to evolve with it.

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References

1.             Deloitte, Annual Review of Football Finance 2025 — European football market, Premier League revenues and commercial growth. (Deloitte)

2.             Deloitte, Football Money League 2026 — global club revenues, Real Madrid and commercial revenue. (Deloitte)

3.             Deloitte, Europe's Top Leagues — Annual Review of Football Finance 2025 — €8bn commercial revenue across Europe's big five leagues. (Deloitte)

4.             Deloitte, Game Changers: Unlocking the Potential of Women's Sports 2026 — women's sport revenue projections and commercial growth. (Deloitte)

5.             Deloitte, Women's Elite Sports Revenues 2025 — growth of commercial revenue within women's sport. (Deloitte)

6.             Deloitte, Women's Elite Sports Revenues 2024 — initial $1bn+ valuation and commercial revenue breakdown. (Deloitte)