But it isn't just the usual suspects who are making a killing from a league awash with cash. Respected financial website, money.co.uk has listed it's five big winners - and the five biggest losers - in football's lucrative cash game.
BSkyB are making about £200m a year from pubs where the footy is shown and Nike's 13-year deal with Manchester United is worth nearly £303m.
With these enormous chunks of money changing hands on such a regular basis, there are bound to be some who fare worse than others financially.
Everybody loves an underdog... so who are the five biggest winners (and losers) in football's long history?
1) Ken Bates, Leeds United chairman 2) Fulham 3) Sheikh Mansour, Manchester City owner 4) Roman Abramovich, Chelsea owner 5) Qatar, 2022 World Cup host 1) Croydon Athletic 2) England World Cup bid The failed bid cost the FA around £15m, while twelve local councils paid a total of £2m in various attempts to entice FIFA into their areas. 3) South Africa, 2010 World Cup hosts 4) British Taxpayer The Newcastle-based bank was nationalised at an enormous cost to the taxpayer, who may be disappointed to learn that it has since sponsored Newcastle FC in a £10m contract. To boot, Northern Rock had already paid the club around £25m in the run up to its epic collapse. 5) Leeds United
THE WINNERS
79-year old Ken Bates makes it onto our winners' list because of his history of lucky, if unethical, escapes. He bought Chelsea for £1 in 1982 and sold it for a hundred and forty million times that amount in 2003, but owing to vast debts his profit on that transaction was a meagre £17m.
Zat Knight, with three caps for England, was signed to Fulham from Rushall Olympic in 1999. As Knight wasn't on a contract with Rushall Olympic, there was no obligation for Fulham to pay a transfer fee for him. The owner, Harrod's boss Mohamed Al-Fayed, felt generous enough to send thirty tracksuits to Rushall Olympic as a gesture of gratitude, making Knight one of the best value players in English football history. He performed consistently well and was briefly made captain.
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayan, owner of Manchester City, is the richest man in football by far. He is worth about £20bn (his nearest rival, Lakshmi Mittal, is valued at £3bn below this) and is thought to be the most powerful man in sport; rumours suggest he has Barack Obama on speed dial. His relentless investment in the Manchester area has impressed locals, and the ever-rising price of oil means he can also spend money on hobbies other than football - he owns nearly a third of Virgin Galactic, for example, and also has two wives.
With a forty-man private army, a personal fortune of about £7.4bn and strong links to the Kremlin, Roman Abramovich is a fairly high achiever outside the world of football. He started his business empire in the oil industry and used his wealth earned here to dominate the hostile aluminum market. His involvement with Chelsea has essentially changed the way players are traded - the sheer enormity of his wealth gives him the power to buy whoever he wants and his various appointments have won Chelsea eight major trophies in the last seven years, making them nearly as successful as Manchester United.
Qatar is a largely arid emirate, with limited travel networks and poor infrastructure. In 2022, though, this desert nation of just 1.6 million people will play host to one of the largest events on the planet, somehow accommodating an influx of visitors larger than its own population.
THE LOSERS
Croydon Athletic thought their prayers had been answered when millionaire Mazhar Majeed bought a majority share of the ailing club in 2008. With falling match attendance and a stadium in disrepair, the prospect of a cash injection gave the club a brighter future. Alas, Mazhar Majeed was filmed offering to fix international cricket matches in 2010, a scandal which led to some Pakistani cricketers fleeing their homes.
The English World Cup bid failed spectacularly, despite the attempt being publicly supported by Prince William, Sir Bobby Charlton and (somewhat less notably) Adrian Chiles. England's bids to host both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups lost out to Russia and Qatar respectively - unexpected choices, given their climates. With just two votes for the England 2018 bid, David Cameron very pointedly refused to congratulate Vladimir Putin amid speculation that the Russians may not have stuck to Queensbury Rules.
While the tournament may have successfully boosted South Africa's image, it only made the country £323m back on its infrastructure investment of £3bn. Accusations of FIFA fascism, bitterly low temperatures and those horrible vuvuzelas further put South Africa on the losing side.
Newcastle United has problems of its own, compounded by the recent sale of star striker Andy Carroll to Liverpool. Still, their woes are nothing compared to those of Northern Rock in 2008, when the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage markets in the US led to queues of desperate people withdrawing their savings from Northern Rock branches.
Exorbitant player spending was a major issue - for instance, Darren Huckerby was signed for £6m but only scored two goals in forty games. But fans mostly cringe at the paid £4.5m for Tomas "The Meatball" Brolin, a voracious Swede who earned himself the title of Second Worst Ever Footballer in a list compiled by The Times. He barely contributed to the matches and practises he turned up to and was dropped after scoring only four goals in his two years with the club.