Against the background of the outline of the return of the crowd to the pitches, which includes a maximum amount of up to 1,500 fans on the football pitches and 1,000 in basketball, the silence of the team leaders is especially noticeable. Those owners, chairmen and CEOs who knew how to raise an outcry and turn every stone in order for the state to provide financial assistance to groups, and reached out to the finance minister and the prime minister to make sure the safety net came to fruition. This time their voices fell silent. With the exception of a few, almost all the team leaders are silent in the face of the meager crowd approved by the government on Tuesday. Almost no one is pressing, no one is shouting about the lack of fans.
The reason for this, of course, is economic. In the data revealed here for the first time, a picture emerges that the vast majority of basketball and football teams are more comfortable and lucrative to continue to receive the safety net funds in full, instead of opening the pitches to the amount of crowd approved in the current outline. The numbers first published reveal how much money each team in the top leagues in football and basketball receives for each home game without a crowd, and in the vast majority of cases a clear conclusion emerges: teams are more profitable to continue the season with no crowd at all, as long as there is a limit on fans. For them, it is either all or nothing, and right now they prefer nothing.
Football: Without the crowd – tens of millions of shekels are guaranteed
The largest share of the safety net went to football. The Premier League, the National League and the Football Association received a sum that is close to NIS 80 million, with almost all Premier League teams receiving more than NIS 1 million in support. The amounts in front of you consist of a calculation of 18 games on average per season (in parentheses – the amount per game):
Maccabi Tel Aviv – 19 million (1.05 million)
Maccabi Haifa – 14 million (770 thousand)
Hapoel B’Shlosha – 10 million (550 thousand)
Beitar Jerusalem – 7.5 million (415 thousand)
Hapoel Tel Aviv – 7.3 million (400 thousand)
Football Association – 3.5 million (due to loss of income of the team games)
Hapoel Haifa – 3.5 million (195,000)
Maccabi Netanya – 3.2 million (170,000)
Bnei Yehuda – 1.4 million (80 thousand)
Hapoel Hadera – 1.2 million (65,000)
Maccabi Petah Tikva – Million (55 thousand)
Hapoel Kfar Saba – 850 thousand (47 thousand)
Bnei Sakhnin – 730 thousand (40 thousand)
MS Ashdod – 465 thousand (26 thousand)
Urban KS – 350 thousand (20 thousand)
National League
Hapoel Umm al-Fahm – Million (55 thousand)
Ness Ziona – 880 thousand (50 thousand)
Hapoel Raanana – 850 thousand (48 thousand)
Hapoel Petah Tikva – 255 thousand (14 thousand)
Hapoel Ixl – 235 thousand (13 thousand)
Hapoel Jerusalem – 230 thousand (12.5 thousand)
Hapoel Raj – 120 thousand (6 thousand)
Kafr Qasim – 80 thousand (4.5 thousand)
My brother Nazareth – 70 thousand (4 thousand)
Hapoel Afula – 70 thousand (4 thousand)
Hapoel Rishon LeZion – 60 thousand (3.5 thousand)
Hapoel Acre – 50 thousand (2.8 thousand)
Hapoel Ramat Hasharon – 40 thousand (2.2 thousand)
Galilee landscape – 35 thousand (2,000)
Betar Tel Aviv / Bat Yam – 20 thousand (1,100)
Basketball: Almost NIS 900,000 per game for Maccabi Tel Aviv
The basketball industry received a total of almost NIS 31 million from the defense network. Almost half of the amount goes to Maccabi Tel Aviv, and in fact a number is obtained here that on the one hand does not take into account the team’s income from Euroleague games (according to officials from the Ministry of Finance and Sports), but on the other increases to an astronomical amount of almost 900,000 shekels for a single league game. The amounts in front of you consist of a calculation of 18 games on average per season (in parentheses – the amount per game):
Maccabi Tel Aviv – 16 million (888 thousand)
Hapoel Jerusalem – 6 million (333 thousand)
Hapoel Tel Aviv – 1.8 million (100,000)
Hapoel Holon 1.6 million (88 thousand)
Basketball Association – 1.1 million (due to loss of income from the Cup games and the Israeli team)
Maccabi Haifa – 730 thousand (40 thousand)
Hapoel B’Shlosha – 670 thousand (37 thousand)
Hapoel Eilat – 480 thousand (26 thousand)
Hapoel Gilboa / Galil – 480 thousand (26 thousand)
Maccabi Rishon LeZion – 375 thousand (21 thousand)
Urban Nahariya – 365 thousand (20 thousand)
Urban Ness Ziona – 345 thousand (19 thousand)
Bnei Herzliya – 270 thousand (15 thousand)
Hapoel Haifa – 100 thousand (5.5 thousand)
National League
Elitzur Ashkelon – 100 thousand
Hapoel Galil Elyon – 50 thousand
Maccabi Raanana – 8,000
Findings: Because of the money, fans prefer to stay home
As is well known, these sums are guaranteed to groups until the crowd returns to the pitches. The Ministries of Finance and Sports have pledged to give the teams an adjustment month in which the money will continue to flow in full, after which the amount to be deducted will be only the proportion of the approved amount of audience. The problem of the teams is that currently, the maximum amount approved is up to 1,500 fans in football and up to 1,000 in basketball.
In many halls and stadiums, only 500 spectators are allowed – and in such a situation, it is better for clubs to continue to receive the money from the safety net and not to bring in an audience at all. A group that is only allowed in 500 spectators can produce a relatively low income ceiling – and that is before the expenses involved in opening the field – cash registers, additional security and ushers, policing, club employees returning from sick leave and more. And here’s the main reason why group leaders are reluctant to get the audience back in the current outline.
Sports Minister Hili Trooper has succeeded, after huge efforts, in approving a generous economic safety net for teams. But it is important to remember: the sole purpose of the network was to help clubs survive the Corona period and provide compensation for the fact that the state prevents income groups from selling tickets and subscriptions. Somewhere in July 2020, no one thought the teams would choose to use the net to prevent the crowd from returning to the pitches. In practice, this is exactly what most teams try to do.
