The Swiss Ramble investigates the 2024/25 accounts of Ipswich Town which relate to their year in the Premier League. Much more detail and analysis is available on his Substack page.
Ipswich’s transformation has been driven by the new owners,
who purchased the club in April 2021 for a reported £40m. As a result, Ipswich
Town are now majority owned by the appropriately named Gamechanger 20 Limited,
though the ultimate owner was the Arizona state pension fund, the Public Safety
Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), via its investment firm, ORG.
The new ownership group has certainly put its money where
its mouth is to date, investing a lot in the squad and the club’s
infrastructure. They were helped by the
previous owner, Marcus Evans, writing-off the vast majority of the club’s debt
as part of the takeover, but it’s fair to say that the new owners provided the
catalyst for Ipswich’s renaissance.
There have been a few changes since the initial investment,
as Bright Path Sports Partners, a US private equity firm specialising in
professional sports franchises, invested “up to £105m” for a 40% minority stake
in March 2024.Subsequently, in December 2025 ORG sold a large chunk of its
shares to Portman Holdings LLC, though remain a significant investor. Portman
Holdings also include Clara Vista Partners and the Three Lions Fund.
Following this transaction, it looks like ORG has around
45%, while Bright Path has about 40%, with a small stake for Three Lions (i.e.
businessmen Brett Johnson, Berke Bakay and Mark Detmer) and 1.4% for singer Ed
Sheeran, a lifelong Ipswich fan. Most
strikingly, the latest transaction valued Ipswich Town at £350m, which was an
eyebrow-raising figure for a club that was in the Championship at the time.
Move Into profit
Following promotion to the Premier League, Ipswich swung
from a substantial £39.3m pre-tax loss to a £4.0m profit, driven by a steep
rise in revenue, which more than quadrupled from £37.3m to a club record
£155.4m. In addition, profit on player
sales improved from £1.2m to £15.4m, while other operating income tripled from
£1.5m to £4.6m. Ipswich’s £15.4m profit
on player sales was not only a club record, but was more than the previous five
years combined, when they only made £12.1m, though this was not completely
unexpected, given that three of those seasons were spent in League One.
This was partly offset by an increase in operating expenses,
which more than doubled from £79.3m to £166.2m, while net interest payable was
up from basically zero to £5.2m. The
club admitted that the profit was something of a double-edged sword, “Whilst
this is welcomed, it is noted this was not the intention at the beginning of
the season, and only resulted from the sale of playing assets prior to 30th
June 2025 and a reduction in performance based bonuses versus budget.”
The main driver of Ipswich’s £118.1m revenue increase was
broadcasting, which was up tenfold, rising by £97.3m from £10.3m to £107.6m, as
TV rights are significantly higher in the Premier League than the Championship. There was also a notable increase in
commercial, which more than doubled from £16.5m to £36.6m, while match day rose
£0.7m (8%) from £10.5m to £11.2m.
Ipswich’s revenue was
obviously much higher after promotion to the Premier League, establishing a
massive new club record of £155m. even
after this fabulous growth, Ipswich’s £155m revenue was still the lowest in the
Premier League, just below another relegated club, Southampton, with a sizeable
gap to Wolves £172m.
Ipswich were one of only four clubs that made money in the
2024/25 Premier League, along with Liverpool £15m, Bournemouth £15m and Crystal
Palace £8m. This was the first time that
Ipswich had posted a profit in ten years, the last occasion being £5.5m in
2014/15. Ipswich’s £6m operating loss
was easily the smallest in the Premier League, much better than the next best
clubs, namely Liverpool £30m and Manchester United £31m.
Before that, Ipswich’s losses had steadily grown during
their rise up the leagues, as the new owners pushed the boat out in order to
take the club back to former glories.
Attendances and stadium
Ipswich’s average attendances increased from 28,844 to
29,660, which the Swiss Ramble believes is the club’s highest ever. In fact,
crowds were up over 80% since the low of 16,272 in League One in 2017/18. Despite the steep improvement, Ipswich’s
29,660 attendance was firmly in the bottom half of the Premier League, where
seven clubs regularly attract crowds above 50,000, led by Manchester United
73,815.
Ipswich have “big plans for the stadium”, with an objective
of expanding Portman Road from its current capacity of around 30,000 to at
least 35,000 (maybe as much as 40,000).
The club has already bought land behind the Cobbold Stand to facilitate
the expansion, but Ashton said that there is no fixed timeline with other
projects being prioritised, especially the training ground.
After many years of virtually no investment in
infrastructure, the new owners have seen this as a priority, spending £34m in
the last three seasons, including renovating parts of the stadium, which they
needed to upgrade for the Premier League.
In addition, they have spent a lot on the major redevelopment of the
Playford Road training centre,
Ipswich’s wage bill rose £32.6m (73%) from £44.5m to a new
club record £77.1m, though the underlying increase was even higher, as the
previous season included a £16.3m promotion bonus, while no survival bonus was
paid in 2024/25. On that basis, wages almost tripled after going up. Even after this significant growth,
Ipswich’s £77m wage bill was by some distance the smallest in the Premier
League, with the next lowest being Southampton £116m and Brentford £131m.
The Swiss Ramble concludes: ‘Obviously, it was a
disappointment for Ipswich to be relegated at the end of their first season
back in the Premier League, but this underlined the huge challenge facing a
club coming up from the Championship.
In Ipswich’s case, this was even more acute, given their
rapid ascent, after they were promoted two years in succession. External
observers will point to the significant transfer spend, but this was not enough
to bridge the gap to more established clubs.
In fact, they were ranked bottom of the Premier League in revenue,
wages, player amortisation and squad cost, so they were up against it from day
one.
They have done well to bounce back, but the question now is
whether next season’s results in the Premier League will be any different? However, looked at through a narrow financial
prism, Ipswich will have to significantly outperform their budget if they are
to spend more than one season in the top flight. This summer’s recruitment will
be crucial.’
The only Ipswich fan I know lives in the Orkney Islands, but
I wish them well up against the Premier League’s wealthy elite.
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