PRICED OUT #2: How the Big 6 squeezed the fans to max out match day money
My research shows the elite clubs' exponential growth in per-fan revenue has not yet been matched by their rivals
For the second of our three-part investigation into hyper-inflation in Premier League ticketing, I’m going to take you through the changes in match day revenue for the 10 clubs who have spent the most time in the top division since it rebranded in the early 1990s. You’ll see which clubs have accelerated their earning power far, far beyond the rate of inflation, how the burden on the individual fan has changed, and the strategies elite clubs adopt to ensure the money machine never sleeps.
The data comes from their own financial records, from multiple pieces of research I have undertaken across three decades, and also from the answers that came back from a survey I sent to each club for this series.
On Monday, we looked at an overview of the cost of an average one-off match-day ticket at a sample of Premier League clubs between the early 1990s and now.
Today we’re considering match day revenues in 1991-92 (the season before the Premier League began), and in 2001-02, 2011-12 and 2022-23 at the 10 clubs who have spent the most years in the Premier League in that period. We’ve then divided that by each season’s total attendances for each club, across all home matches, in all competitions.
This provides us with a basic figure for revenue per club, per fan, per game, in each of those four seasons spaced across 32 years. Many fans will actually have paid less than this figure in any given season, while those in the most expensive corporate seats and boxes will have paid multiples.
Thus this methodology comes with caveats. In our first season under consideration, there were far fewer price points, match categories, dining and corporate options than today. These have all increased over time.
I’ve made informed estimates, using official club accounts filed down the years at Companies House, to get as close as possible to like-for-like data for each club. I’ve attempted to include spending by all fans who have attended games (in whatever type of seat) on tickets, food, drink and programmes. I have excluded broadcasting income from match days and where possible other commercial income from match days, such as pitchside ads.
The 10 clubs used for this study are Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham, all of whom have been ever-present in the Premier League era for 32 seasons; plus Aston Villa and Newcastle, who have both played in the PL for 29 of the 32 seasons; plus West Ham, who have played in the PL for 28 years; and Manchester City, who have played in 27 of the 32 Premier League seasons.
The data will be flawed - in places, a little bit - for the reasons in the caveats above, but it’s based on matter-of-fact revenues and matter-of-fact attendances and allows us on a broadly like-for-like basis to compare prices and price increases at Premier League clubs across 30-plus years.
Some younger readers might be surprised at quite how little income Premier League clubs earned from TV when the revamped division began in 1992-93.
Manchester United had total revenue of just £14m in 1992-93, the season they won their first top-flight title since 1967, and that was up from £12.1m the year before. Their total TV income and prize money from the Premier League in 1992-93 was just £2.41m. They made £9.6m from gate receipts and programme sales in the same campaign.
(Manchester City, for comparison, made £172.6m from Premier League TV cash and prize money alone for winning the 2022-23 title).
Also worth noting is how few games were live on TV at the start of the Sky Sports era. United were shown live in the UK more than any other Premier League team - but only 10 times. A few clubs were shown live as few as three times, including Middlesbrough, who earned just £1.06m from broadcast revenue that season.
Ticket income mattered considerably more as a contributor to total revenues back then.
For stats nerds, note the three clubs who received parachute payments at the end of the first Premier League season: Luton, Notts County and West Ham. They had all signed up to potentially become part of the inaugural PL season but ended up relegated from England’s top division at the end of the 1991-92 season.
Here’s a question for your next pub quiz: which football club is the only club ever to have received a Premier League parachute payment without ever having played in the Premier League? (Answer: Notts County)
In today’s piece, I’m going to outline the changing face of ticket pricing at our 10 featured clubs since 1991. Then on Friday I’ll be taking a deep dive into what proportion of tickets at each club are sold as season tickets, and why, for all 20 clubs who have just contested the 2023-24 season.
In researching this, I asked all 20 clubs for the following data:
Their official current stadium capacities
The number of seats sold as season tickets for season 2023-24
The price of the most commonly availably season ticket
Details of any waiting lists or membership schemes
Most clubs replied, and some provided detailed answers. Those replies will be spread across today’s piece and Friday’s and make for fascinating reading.