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League Within a League?

By Matt Traynor :  25/04/2007 :  Comments (5) :

With the season practically ended, it’s worthwhile looking at the money side of game, based on performance in the league and in the cup. The figures below represent monies paid by the English Premier League, UEFA and the Prize money for the domestic cup competitions. Therefore gate revenue, merchandising, sale of cold pies and warm Chang are not included.

 

 

Earnings in £ millions

  Pos Team

EPL

Europe

Cups

Total

  
  1 Man Utd £30.58 £28.90 £2.95 £62.43  
  2 Chelsea £30.97 £26.40 £4.27 £61.64  
  3 Liverpool £28.44 £26.00 £0.27 £54.71  
  4 Arsenal £28.60 £13.90 £1.63 £44.13  
  5 Tottenham £27.21 £2.00 £1.34 £30.55  
  6 Everton £25.55   £0.12 £25.67  
  7 Bolton £24.63   £0.48 £25.11  
  8 Reading £23.64   £0.78 £24.42  
  9 Portsmouth £23.15   £0.33 £23.48  
  10 Blackburn £22.24 £0.80 £1.64 £24.68  
  11 Aston Villa £22.23   £0.27 £22.50  
  12 Middlesborough £20.77   £1.07 £21.84  
  13 Newcastle £21.21 £1.00 £0.27 £22.48  
  14 Man City £21.37   £1.02 £22.39  
  15 West Ham £20.71 £0.10 £0.18 £20.99  
  16 Fulham £20.26   £0.52 £20.78  
  17 Wigan £18.58   £0.12 £18.70  
  18 Sheff Utd £18.00   £0.12 £18.12  
  19 Charlton £18.00   £0.12 £18.12  
  20 Watford £17.02   £0.96 £17.98  
    Totals £463.16 £99.10 £18.46    

 

At the time of writing this includes an additional £1m to Chelsea for lifting the FA Cup. Should Liverpool win the Champions (ha!) League they will pocket another £2m.

First to explain the EPL figures. Each team gets £8.9m for UK rights, plus £4.02m for overseas TV, sponsorship and licensing. Then there is prize money which is £9.7m for the winners and £487k for the bottom team. Each position is worth just under £500k. In addition there is an additional £240k-£350k for appearing live on TV, depending on timing, whether PPV etc. There’s probably some other payments of some description I’m not familiar these figures are from a variety of sources, but I suspect there is also additional payments for being selected for overseas games – the traditional (another ha!) Saturday 3pm games appear live in a lot of countries.

So looking at Everton’s figures you can see that the team immediately above us, Tottenham, must’ve appeared more frequently on TV than us – even if we’d won on the last day and claimed the 5th spot, we’d still be just behind them in money terms.

Although not significant in itself, the paltry £120k earned by Everton in the domestic cups is the joint lowest in the League, but clearly the FA Cup is the greater of the two competitions, as even Liverpool only managed £270k, although looking at their cup focus it obviously pays to concentrate on the Champions League if you have the choice.

Given that Spurs got to the quarter finals and banked only £2m, it’s clear why the Champions League is the promised land that teams aspire to. I can’t fathom why Liverpool have earned less (so far) than the other two that got to the semis (it may be they drew or lost slightly more games in the group stages), but the scale is obvious – given that probably around £17m is guaranteed from being in the EPL, it is easy to see why clubs aim on getting to the group stages.

So what for Everton? Well, improving league position will have a marginal impact, unless it is in tandem with being featured live on the box more often (something that is outside of our control). The extra money guarantees an additional £12m per annum, and whilst I don’t know what the changes to the prize or TV money are, it’s clear to see that breaking that cartel of 4 has to be the long term goal. Improving our European experience, and in Moyes’ case his cup experience overall would deliver minimal returns (unless in the Champions League) but would improve the profile of the club, and give some of the fans something more to look forward to (notwithstanding arguments about squad sizes etc).

In conclusion, and as part of the recent debate about breaking the top four – Moyes, and others have shown it can be done. The difference in finances shows why it is important for the Chairmen to do it. Arsenal has ‘banked’ on appearing in the top four consistently as part of their new stadium development. Leeds went into debt to, in the words of Peter Ridsdale, ‘chase the dream’.

Doing it without jeopardising the long term of the club is the challenge for Moyes, Wyness and Kenwright.

Reader Comments (5)

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Pete Moore
1 Posted 22/05/2007 at 04:31:40
Very insightful, Matt; nice one. Here?s hoping the lucky few above us spunk their extra spondoolies on over rated fancy dan types, while the Moyestro continues to procure gems like Cahill, Arteta and Lescott! However, allied to Moyes?s canny dealings, we need serious investment to reach the promised land of the top four consistently. Accordingly, ?pushing the envelope? on young, improving, top quality investments in the future like Manny Fernandes is hopefully something we can afford. Come on KW, BK et al, you know it makes sense!
Amin
2 Posted 22/05/2007 at 05:33:48
What’s interesting to see is that there’s even a smaller league in the top 4. The difference between qualifying into the semi’s of the CL and Arsenal who’s knoecked out since the last 16 is an enourmous 13 million.
Aaron Smith
3 Posted 22/05/2007 at 15:20:01
The sad thing is everything in football now is MONEY, if we are to continue our great progress and be a top 4 club which is what our goal should be then we need serious money (investment). Every other team in the world somehow catches the eyes of investment it's crazy! I know Everton can be bought cheaply enough, sorry to say, so what is the catch? Why no interest? Also, if we are to improve, we have to take risks sometimes like Fernandes and so on. To think we ummd and arrghhd over the Arteta signing... imagine us without him now.
David Ellis
4 Posted 25/05/2007 at 02:53:05
Matt Good informative piece. However the other revenue figures for merchandising and ticket sales and transfer receipts would need to be included to show the real gap. I believe Everton’s overall revenue is approximately 55m vs 120m for Liverpool and around 75m for Spurs. Manu U are around 180m. However it does show that things have improved. We now compete finanically quite well with historic peers like Villa, Spurs, Newcastle and City. Whereas a few years ago we were struggling to match the likes of Southampton and Charlton (now both dearly departed)and were clearly outspent by the likes of Birmingham. Also teams do drop out of the top 4. Leeds did. Newcastle did. Chelsea would have done (and were completely broke) until Abromovich rescued them - they were going the way of Leeds Utd, massive debts and wage bills, a mid table team and moderately competent manager. If the Russian loses interest they will quickly fall back to earth and given their wage bills they could sink very quickly. Liverpool rescued themselves by winning the CL in the year we pushed them out of the competition. Two years without CL football would have really hurt them. Arsenal now look a bit vulnerable and frankly are where they are because they have had the best manager in the league for 10 years (plus Viera and Henry). But with David Dein gone and at some point Wenger and Henry gone I think they could start sliding down the pole. And once it starts the debts pile up and they have to start selling and......... I can’t wait.
Donnchadh
5 Posted 25/05/2007 at 12:14:14
Have to agree this is an important piece of research. not sure about breaking the bank to make the top four. baby steps!! but at some stage the board will ahve to bite the bullet and for me that starts with the signing of Fernandes.

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