Real Madrid on top by Far
Real Madrid has been dominant in recent seasons of the Champions League, winning the competition four out of the last five times it has been played between the years 2013 and 2018. Their solitary loss occurred in the 2015 season, when they were eliminated from the competition by Juventus in the semi-finals. In the end, their fiercest rivals, Barcelona, were victorious and took home the trophy. After taking home the championship in 2018, there were big expectations placed on the team that is now holding that title in 2019. The European heavyweights, however, were eliminated from the tournament by the underdogs, Ajax, at the quarter final stage of the competition. This marked the quickest exit from Europe for the European giants in the past nine years. Their losing streak lasted for the next two seasons (2019/20 and 2020/21), when they failed to qualify for the championship game on both occasions; however, in 2021/22 they were able to successfully restore their crown as winners.
The Champions League is a lucrative competition.
A considerable increase occurred from the income of just under 1.1 billion euros in the 2009/10 season to the revenue of 2.8 billion euros during the 2020/21 season of the UEFA Champions League. This increase was due to an increase in the number of teams competing in the tournament. It should come as no surprise that the rights to broadcast the club championship's games are worth a significant amount of money given that the competition is one of the most popular in the world. The broadcasting rights of the competition brought in around 2.39 billion euros in income for the year 2020/21, while the commercial rights brought in an additional 401.5 million euros. Although there is a long way to go before soccer in the United States can achieve the same level of popularity as more conventional sports like American football and basketball, it does appear that interest in the sport is beginning to increase. The 2019 Champions League final was seen by 1.51 million people in the United States; in 2021, that number is expected to rise to almost two million.