The two headline fixtures of round 6 in the Roshn Saudi League carry combined squad values of €671.11 million on Transfermarkt data. Al-Qadisiyyah against Al-Ahli totals €347.73 million, Al-Ahli at €193.9 million and Al-Qadisiyyah at €153.8 million, a gap of €40.07 million, while Al-Hilal against Neom totals €323.38 million, with Al-Hilal at €239.8 million and Neom at €83.50 million. Total league squad values stand at €1.28 billion.
Most of the value is found in just a few squads, not spread evenly across the league. When you plan your sponsorship budget, focus more on the clubs that offer the most value instead of choosing league-wide packages.
Explore more signals
Six months to fund $5 billion
DataVolt expects to close financing on its Saudi AI data centre pipeline — $5 billion total — within six months, with a 1.5GW facility at Neom whose first phase is due operational in 2028. Its Uzbekistan site TAS-1 is raising up to $150 million against a $250 million project cost, including $78 million from the EBRD on a 12-year non-recourse term; the first 6MW phase has under 10% of capacity left. Parent Vision Invest manages more than $95 billion of infrastructure assets.
The Uzbekistan deal is the tell. A 12-year non-recourse structure with a development bank anchoring it is the template they'll try to replicate at Neom and 1.5GW is roughly twenty times the scale, which is where the template gets tested.
29.3 million, and counting
29.3M international tourists in 2025, up 67% since 2019, highest growth of any OECD member; SR176.6bn foreign spend, SR127.1bn domestic; 5.2% of GDP.
Domestic spend is close behind foreign and growing faster (10%), the Saudi family is the customer you can actually reach this year.
Payments players move into lending
SAMA approved raising the capital of GO Money, GO Telecom's wholly owned subsidiary, from SAR 20 million to SAR 138 million, with SAR 100 million in new cash from the parent, to support growth of its financing portfolio. The same day, Barq said it became the first digital wallet in the Kingdom to receive SAMA's preliminary approval to add financing to its activities.
Payments opened the door, but lending is where the real profits are. Now that SAMA allows wallet and telecom-backed companies to enter this space, bank digital teams need to decide whether to partner with these players or compete with them directly.
