The German Football League (DFL) has announced that it has increased its revenue for the 12th year running.
The DFL released the Bundesliga Report 2017 on Thursday, which outlines a 23.7 percent rise in turnover from €2.62 billion to €3.24bn for the 2015-2016 season, with just under a third of that coming from the two German powerhouses Bayern Munich (€626.8 million) and Borussia Dortmund (376.3m).
A total of 13 clubs posted a turnover of over €100m last season. The six clubs with the highest costs for "match operations" generated an average turnover of €333.2m, compared to an average of only €82.6m for teams in the final third.
The top six clubs' media receipts averaged €88.2m -- more than double the average for the rest of the teams in the division.
Growth was posted in all revenues areas, with revenue from transfers rising by 131 percent from €230m to €532.6m. Clubs also spent €512m on transfers, up from €373.6m last term.
The 18 Bundesliga clubs invested a total of €110.9m into their youth academies and reserve teams, up from €93.9m in the 2014-2015 season.
The single biggest contributor was the media receipts, accounting for €933.3m -- 28.7 percent of the aggregate revenue.
Those numbers are likely to increase over the next few years, with a new multi-billion euro domestic TV deal kicking in next season.
The league's advertising revenue made up for 23.81 percent of the aggregate with €772.5m, and despite the still high attendance numbers, the match revenue fell behind the revenue from transfers and was only the fourth largest contributor with €527.6m.
The league for the first time paid over €1bn for "match operations" -- the salaries of the professional players. This accounted for 32.6 percent of total expenditure, down from 38.79 percent last season.
The 18 top-tier clubs generated an aggregate profit after taxes of €206.2m -- the highest profit in the league's history and as high as the profits of all the four past seasons added together. Sixteen clubs posted a profit after taxes.
Germany's 36 professional football clubs in the upper two tiers are also a source of income for 53,114 people, up from 50,237 last season.
Close to 19 million fans attended the 612 games of the upper two tiers. An average of 42,421 fans passed through the gates of every Bundesliga match, with the second league averaging 19,017 per match -- a record for the second tier, and the second highest attendance figure in the top tier.