Hearts 2020/21 accounts, when they increased pre-tax profit
from £0.4m to £2.0m, despite the impact of relegation and COVID, which reduced
revenue from £12.3m to £7.7m, mainly thanks to £6.4m donations.
Hearts reported the largest profit in Scotland with £2.0m,
albeit only because of their “very generous” donations of £6.4m. In contrast,
both Rangers and Celtic made large losses with £24.2m and £12.6m respectively,
followed by Aberdeen £2.3m.
The last loss Hearts reported was £0.9m in 2015, when they
also won the Scottish Championship. Since promotion, they have been profitable
6 seasons in a row, though the £27m profit in 2014 is a bit misleading, as it
included £27m debt write-off following administration.
Despite revenue falling £4.6m (37%) from £12.3m to £7.7m
following relegation, Hearts pre-tax profit improved from £0.4m to £2.0m,
mainly thanks to £6.4m donations from benefactors and the Foundation of Hearts,
while profit on player sales was up £0.6m to £0.9m. Apart from the Glasgow
giants, few clubs in Scotland make big money from player trading.
Hearts £7.7m revenue in the Scottish Championship was
decent, especially with the adverse impact of COVID. However, it was nowhere
near Celtic £61m and Rangers £48m. A more reasonable comparison would be with
Aberdeen, who generated £11.1m in the Premiership.
Despite relegation, Hearts broadcasting revenue was
unchanged at £2.0m, though down from the club’s £3.0m peak in 2019. In
Scotland, only Rangers £19m and Celtic £11m earn more than £4m from this
revenue stream, mainly thanks to money from European competition.
There was a new five-year Scottish TV deal with Sky Sports
worth £30m (€34m) a year from 2020/21 (up from £25m), but this is not going to
move the needle by much. It’s still much lower than Poland Ekstraklasa €58m
& Belgium Jupiler League €83m, let alone Premier League €3.6 bn.
Hearts average attendance in 2019/20 was 16,751, the 3rd
highest in Scotland, just ahead of local rivals Hibernian 16,729. Over 13,000
season tickets sold for the 2021/22 season, described by the club as an
“over-whelming response” to current uncertainty.
Match day revenue
is particularly important for Scottish clubs, given the low TV deal. According
to Deloitte, this accounted for an incredible 48% of total revenue in Scotland
in 2018/19 (pre-pandemic) with the next highest country being significantly
lower, i.e. Belgium 26%.
Hearts £7.5m wage bill is still the fourth highest in
Scotland to date in 2020/21, though Celtic’s £52m is an incredible 7 times as
much, while Rangers’ £48m is 6 times as much. It was also below Aberdeen £9.5m
(in the Premiership). Hearts wages to
turnover ratio increased from 71% to 94%, obviously impacted by the pandemic
and relegation. They were sandwiched
between Rangers 100% and Celtic 85%.
Hearts have only spent a total of £2.0m on bringing in
players in the last five years, though this was actually around 3 times as much
as £0.7m in the preceding five-year period.
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