何谓足球商业化？
我看了下其他人的答案，大部分都在介绍什么是商业体育(sports business)、体育营销(sport marketing)， 还有一部分是在讲足球和足球商业的历史。但我想说的是，这些跟题主的问题都无关。 我认为，在讨论"什么是足球商业化"之前，首先应该定义一下"什么是足球运动"(what is football？），然后再进一步解释这个“什么”怎么被商业化（how it gets commercialized）. 如果大家把这个问题反过来问： “当人们说xxx是‘足球商业化’的时候，到底他们在谈的是什么？” 这会是一个很好的入门问题。 这个问题的答案很简单：他们只是在谈论一个足球俱乐部（football club），或者更准确地说，谈论的是球迷们关于俱乐部的文化认同感与归属感——这种文化认同感和归属感的本质就是人们对一家俱乐部的支持程度。而支持的方式包括看球（game attendance， TV ratings等）、花钱买周边产品和广告（merchandise and sponsorships）等等。
所以从表面上看，似乎没有哪项活动是真正的“足球商业化”——因为不管做什么，归根结底都是在“支持/拥护某支球队”；如果非要说的话，可以这么说吧： When you are talking about "xx is a part of 'football' commercialization，" what xx really means is that how much people care for/about the team in question， measured by whatever data you can collect to reflect this level. 所以我的答案是： when we say (part of or all of ) ‘football’ becomes commercially， what we mean is just an increase on people’s passion towards one specific team they support —— be it increased game-attendance due to more attractive games played at home grounds; purchases of memorabilia such as scarves， jerseys etc; purchase of broadcasting rights from media channels or online streaming services like YouTube or Facebook Live streams; buying merchandise with their favorite teams logo printed onto them which may include caps， socks bags， mugs...all so as to show others who the fandom belongs to – these activities amount to being a form of "commercial activity"， no matter whether there were any profits earned by doing those things， because it reflects a change in public sentiment： namely， people feel stronger commitment to supporting certain clubs than before. And obviously， some fans buy stuff they don't need just out of love for their favourite team ， while other do not hesitate to pay ridiculous amounts of money for tickets to see their favorites play live even only once every few years…therefore， sometimes profits would exist if you dig deep enough into the market and find out who exactly is spending what kind of money. I hope I made my point clear 🙂 Feel free to leave comments！ Thanks~