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Are Paintings Pricier than Soccer Players?

We crunched the numbers.
When Will You Marry? by Paul Gauguin, 1892,  via Wikimedia Commons, and Gareth Bale, via Wikimedia Commons

In terms of money, 2015 was a great year for art. In February, Paul Gauguin's When Will You Marry? became the most expensive work of art ever when it sold for nearly $300 million (€275 million). A few months later, Les Femmes d’Algers (Version “O”) by Pablo Picasso set records as the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, when it was bought for $179 million (€164 million).

So for now, art is winning. The most expensive soccer player in the world, Welsh winger Gareth Bale, was sold to Real Madrid for €100 million in 2013. In 2015, the most expensive player was Belgian Kevin de Bruyne, who was sold to to Manchester City for €75 million—which amounts to a quarter of the price of that Gauguin painting.

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But for how much longer will Picassos out-price players? Clubs are increasingly able to establish a total player value no Gauguin can match—Manchester City recently established a team worth upwards of €400 million. Thanks to a mix of corrupt bosses, lack of controls, and soccer sugar-daddies from abroad, transfer fees seem to be increasing exponentially in recent years. And while soccer is the world’s favorite sport, no one player’s career value is as timeless as that of a Picasso or a Van Gogh.

This upward drift in transfer fees can easily be visualized in a graph. If current trends hold, then the most expensive soccer player in 2025 will cost more than €160 million.

From left to right: Denilson (1998: 30.9 million), Vieri (1999, 43 million), Figo (2000, 62 million), Zidane (2001, 75 million), Ferdinand (2002: 44.8 million), Beckham (in 2003, 35.9 million), Rooney (2004, 39.4 million), Wright-Phillips (2005, 30.5 million), Shevshenko (in 2006, 43.8 million), Robben (2007, 36 million), Robinho (in 2008, 42.5 million), Cristiano Ronaldo (2009, 94 million), Villa (2010, 40 million), Torres (2011, 58 million), Thiago Silva (2012, 44.4 million), Bale (2013, 100 million), Suarez (2014, 93.7 million) and De Bruyne (2015, 75 million)

The art market is on an upward trend, too. Besides the two aforementioned paintings, Paul Cezanne's The Card Players and Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucien Freud also set records in recent years. Here’s a graph of record-breaking art sales over the past 20 years or so.

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From left to right: Self-portrait without beard (Vincent van Gogh, in 1998, 82 million), Still Life with Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit (Paul Cézanne, 1999, 56.3 million), Woman with Folded Arms (Pablo Picasso, 2000, 64, 4 million), Massacre of the Innocents (Peter Paul Rubens, 2002, 76.7 million), Portrait of Alfonso d'Avalos (Titian, 2003, 59.8 million) Garçon à la pipe (Pablo Picasso, in 2004, 85 million) No. 5 (Jackson Pollock, in 2006, 147 million), White Center (Mark Rothko, 2007, 54 million), Tryptich (Francis Bacon, in 2008, 66 million), Diana and Actaeon (Titian, 2009, 39.4 million), Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust (Pablo Picasso, 2010, 81.4 million), The Card Players (Paul Cézanne, 2011, 245 million), The Scream (Munch, 2012, 91 million), The Dream (Pablo Picasso, in 2013, 142 million ), No. 6 (Mark Rothko, 2014, 166 million), and When Will You Marry? (Paul Gauguin, 2015, 264 million)

With four record prices and an overall value of €372.8 million, Picasso’s the art world’s most prolific record breaker. His soccer equivalent would perhaps be Ángel di María. With an aggregate transfer fee of €188.7 million, Di María is indeed cumulatively considered the most expensive player of all time. He does not appear on the list of individual record transfer fees, but has moved clubs four times in recent years.

So let’s see the two graphs put together.

So it turns out that art is more expensive than football, and probably will be for a while. After the turn of the century it seemed for a moment that the two price ranges might cross, but these days, it seems unlikely. Indeed, if we now assume that the current trends will persist, the question is whether the price of footballers will ever come close to the price of art.

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