Skip to main content

Arsenal evolves as a global super club

The Sunday Times magazine carried a long article yesterday on Arsenal including a rare interview with manager Arteta and other key figures at the club.  It was clearly a public relations exercise designed to put the club in the best possible light ahead of the new season, fair enough.   However, it did contain some interesting statistics and comments for the neutral (I should mention that my stepdaughter and her husband are Gooners).

'Following last season's triumphs, analysts expect a 15 per cent bump [in revenue] for Arsenal, pushing the club beyond £790m.  That would place them firmly in the global financial elite ...it would make Arsenal third in the world behind the mighty Real Madrid and Barcelona.'  [The actual placing would depend on how much PSG grew their revenue].

The article points out that there are now four Basque managers in the Premier League: Arteta, Emery at Aston Villa, Iraola at Liverpool and Alonso at Chelsea.  The Basque population is around three million. Arteta puts this down to a passion for the game, values and education.

Arsenal has global appeal.  In the US there are 89 local official,supporters' groups.   The club is searched for online in the US 1.89 million times every month, followed by Indonesia at 1.87 million.  The UK figure is 4.3 million.

Emirates started sponsoring the club 20 years ago because it had so many fans living in the cities the airline flew to in Asia and Africa.   However, 'the club is based firmly in the wealthy metropolitan heartlands of north London. ... The club insists that, for all its global fanbase, its soul remains anchored in the community.'

Commercial revenues have recently been swelled by sponsorship renewals with Adidas and Emirates, a new sleeve sponsorship from the IT company Deel, and a partnership with the Wall Street titan JP Morgan.

Expanding the stadium is being considered but the logistics are complex and it would be expensiive, plus a council buy in would be needed..

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site.  He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...

Hull City's 'strange' loan

When football finance guru Kieran Maguire seems flashing lights in a club's loan deal, I become concerned.  He is the leading football finance expert in the UK. Hull City have borrowed £55m against their stadium and training ground yet they should get £30m from the Premier League before long.  What is going on? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cpwel48y51do