Germany's professional sports leagues have generated their highest combined revenue in the last five years during the '11-12 season. This is the result of a Deloitte study called "Finanzreport deutscher Profisportligen [Financial ReportGerman Professional Sports Leagues]," which takes a look at profitability of the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL), German Hockey League (DEL), Handball Bundesliga (HLD) and the 3rd League in football. In addition, for the first time the annual study also includes the Austrian and Swiss top-flight football leagues. The BBL, DEL, HBL and 3rd League generated a combined revenue of €353.6M ($452.7M) in '11-12, which is an increase of 3.2%. The driving force behind this growth is the BBL, which increased its revenue by 26.3%, and profited from the promotion of Bayern Munich. Deloitte Senior Consultant Stefanie Vogel said, "The competition between the leagues regarding fans, TV presence and sponsors is bigger than ever before. It will be interesting to see if the recently finalized agreement between public broadcasters ARD and ZDF and the league trio DEL, HBL and BBL about increased coverage of the leagues can provide them with new growth potential." The 18 BBL clubs were able to increase their revenue by more than one fourth during the '11-12 season, which resulted in combined record-revenue of €76.9M ($98.4M). The BBL was also able to increase its average attendance to 4,422 per game. In addition, the DEL and HBL were also able to increase their revenues by 8.8% and 2%, respectively. The handball league generated its best-ever result with a revenue of €86.1M ($110.2M). However, the HBL was unable to duplicate its annual growth rate over the past several years of 9.5%. As a result, the HBL lost its position as the most-profitable arena sports league to the DEL. The hockey league generated a revenue of €86.2M ($110.3M). The 3rd League generated the best result of all surveyed professional leagues in Germany with a revenue of €104.4M ($133.6M). At the same time, the 3rd League was the only league that suffered a revenue decrease of 11.5%. The report also took a look at the top football leagues in Austria and Switzerland. The Austrian tipp3-Bundesliga generated €155.1M ($199M) in revenue, while the Swiss Raiffeisen Super League generated €171.3M ($219.2M). The results of both leagues are considerably above Germany's 3rd League (Deloitte).
