Multi-club ownership and sporting success: myth, expectation, and evidence

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Research objectives Multi-club ownership (MCO) is often assumed to enhance talent mobility and squad depth, but its impact on on-field success remains under-researched. The current study investigated whether MCO improves affiliated clubs’ sporting outcomes and explored how performance effects vary across ownership models, network structures, and a club’s role within its MCO network.Research methods We used a difference-in-differences method to analyze a new panel dataset comprising 2,060 club-season observations from 116 MCO-affiliated professional football clubs and 232 independently owned control clubs selected via stratified nearest-neighbor matching. The data analyzed spanned 31 seasons from 1993/1994 to 2023/2024 and covered 348 professional clubs in 46 national leagues in major football markets across six regions.Results and findings MCO affiliation was not associated with systematic improvements in a club’s league performance. This null result holds across most ownership models (private equity vs. football groups), network structures (vertical vs. horizontal), and hierarchical roles within MCO networks (flagship vs. feeder).Implications Our findings challenge the prevailing narrative that MCO automatically leads to performance benefits, as ownership type alone does not seem to be a key factor in sporting success. Hence, MCO networks may not necessarily offer a competitive advantage for clubs in the short to medium term, and independently owned clubs could be just as well-positioned to succeed while avoiding threats to their autonomy or identity.