Which clubs are the big earners?

The Premier League is obviously the top of the tree, generating more than £6 bln in revenue, though the lion’s share is made by the Big Six, whose £3.5 bln accounts for 57% of the total.  The Premier League is the top dog (by far), but within this division, there is effectively a series of mini leagues with the following averages: big North West three £652m, rest of the Big Six £509m, aspirational clubs £227m, mid-table £177m and relegation area £147m.

The gap to the Championship is substantial with the parachute clubs averaging £65m, but this is more than twice as much as their rivals. The big clubs in League One generated £20m, but most of them were £5m to £11m.

The Championship had £747m revenue in 2022/23, which was just 12% of the Premier League’s £6.1 bln. This helps explain why so many clubs in this league push themselves to their financial limit in an attempt to secure promotion.   The five parachute clubs had £327m of revenue, while the other 19 clubs only generated £420m between them.

People often talk about the Big Six clubs in England, but in revenue terms, this elite group should really be split into two groups.  The ranking partly depends on which of these clubs qualifies for the Champions League, but based on fundamentals, the big three clubs in the North West of England (Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool) are ahead of the rest with £652m average revenue.

The next revenue grouping is unsurprisingly the rest of the Big Six, so includes Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Arsenal, whose revenue averaged £509m in 2022/23. Even though this was over half a billion, it was still a hefty £143m less than the top three.

Four other clubs generated more than £200m revenue. These could be termed aspirational clubs that are spending a fair amount in an attempt to break through the glass ceiling, namely Newcastle United, West Ham, Aston Villa and Brighton and Hove Albion. These clubs averaged £227m, ranging from £204m to £250m.   The average wage bill was a fair bit lower at £161m, but the wages to turnover ratio was up to 71%. This group had a fairly small loss after exceptional items of £25m, but this included one club with a very large profit (Brighton £110m) and one club with a significant loss (Aston Villa £120m).

Clubs that would be among the best financially in the Championship if parachute payments did not exist, average £32m revenue. This cohort includes Bristol City, Sunderland, Stoke City, Middlesbrough and Cardiff City.

In 2022/23 there were four clubs in League One that had much more revenue than their rivals: Ipswich Town, Derby County, Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield Wednesday.  Indeed, their £20m average was actually higher than the lowest group in the Championship, so it is not surprising that three of them have been promoted since then.

Of the 92 clubs, only 10 managed to generate a net profit - and six of those were less than £400k. The four clubs that made a decent amount of money in 2022/23 were Brighton £110m, Manchester City £80m, Watford £24m and Brentford £9m.

In terms of total revenue, the top 20 clubs are all from the Premier League (as would be expected), followed by the five parachute clubs in the Championship, then another five Championship clubs.  The commercial ranking is a bit more subtle, so Championship clubs did a bit better here, e.g. Bristol City were 17th highest, while Norwich City, Stoke City and Sunderland were all above Premier League Bournemouth. Ipswich Town, who were in League One at the time, were 29th highest.

In terms of match day revenue, three League One clubs featured in the top 30, namely Derby County, Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday.   Some clubs outside the Premier League still manage to attract very high crowds, so four Championship clubs and three League One clubs featured in the top 23, led by Sunderland in 11th place. Derby County from the third tier were as high as 19th.

Whether an independent regulator feels that it should get involved in revenue distribution remains to be seen, but the current differences hardly create a level playing field, either on or off the pitch.