Over half of Manchester City's revenues now commercial

The authoritative Swiss Ramble analyses Manchester City's 2019/20 accounts from his Zurich base.

The main driver of the £57m revenue reduction was broadcasting, which fell £63m (25%) from £253m to £190m, while match day dropped £13m (24%) from £55m to £42m. This was partially offset by commercial rising £19m (9%) from £227m to £246m.

The loss of £125m is obviously not great, but all clubs have been adversely impacted by COVID with no fewer than 9 in the Premier League posting losses above £50m to date in 2019/20. That said, only Everton have reported a larger loss than City with £140m.

The Swiss Ramble's rough estimate is that COVID resulted in £61m reduction to club revenue, split between £30m lost (match day £17m, TV rebates £13m) and £31m broadcasting deferred to 2020/21. Without this, revenue would have been £539m (similar to prior year), but would still have lost £64m.

Although player sales are still not as high at City as many other clubs (e.g. Chelesa £475m since 2015), they have become increasingly important, averaging £38m in last four years. This season will include big money sale of Leroy Sané to Bayern Munich plus Nicolas Otamendi to Benfica.

Despite the decrease in 2019/20, revenue has still grown by £87m (22%) in the last four years, largely due to commercial £68m, though broadcasting is also up £29m. Thanks to TV rebate and revenue deferral, commercial is now the largest revenue stream with 51%.

City have the second highest commercial income in England, having narrowed the gap to Manchester United to just £33m. United’s commercial engine has stalled, hovering at around £275m.

Champions League has been a nice little earner for the club with an impressive €390m received in the last five years, the highest of any English club. City earned (estimated) £87m (€99m) from Europe after reaching Champions League quarter-finals, the highest of all English representatives in Europe.

The wage bill shot up £36m (11%) from £315m to £351m, due to a combination of new signings and contract extensions. This means that wages have increased by £154m (58%) in the last 4 years, comfortably the highest growth of the Big Six. Following this increase, City’s £351m wages are once again the highest in the Premier League, for the first time since 2013. In fact, this is the highest ever wage bill reported in England.

Thee wages to turnover ratio worsened from 59% to 73%, the club’s highest since 2013, though this was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 revenue reductions. In fairness, even this reported number is not too bad, being around mid-table in the Premier League.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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