The 07/08 Premier League season was the first in the new 3-year deal secured by Scudamore and co., one that promises to bring a crazy amount of money into football. While some people think that football is peaking in England, I respectfully disagree – the scramble for football dollars has just begun, with the Premier League product a star-studded attraction.
Just how much money did clubs earn this season, compared to the last? To give you one perspective, Bolton (16th) earned £32m this season, Fulham (17th) £31.3m and Derby (20th) £29.1m. Last season, Manchester United (1) earned £32m, Chelsea (2) earned £30.9m and Arsenal (4th – last season) earned £29m.
The bottom placed team in 07/08 earns more than the 4th placed team from last season – even when you are comparing the least attractive team (Derby) with a team some consider to be the most attractive to watch on TV (Arsenal – they’re not in as much demand as Manchester United, mind you).
Now you know why Sheffield United were throwing such a strop for being relegated. It was never about right or wrong, it was always about the money.
How the money is distributed
The Premier League’s TV broadcasting deals brings in £2.7 billion over three years. Of this, £22.8 million is paid to every Premier League club as part of an equal share of revenue. On top of this, clubs are paid prize-money relative to their final position in the league (Manchester United got £14.4 million, Derby got £720,000) and then earnings from the live matches in which they are featured (Manchester United, with 25 matches, made £12.1 million, while Derby got the guaranteed minimum payment for clubs no-one watches of £5.6m).
The standout factor from this is that there’s so much money to go around that you can’t argue just about financial impoverishment any more. Yes, the gap between the top and bottom has increased, but the sheer amount of money earned by all clubs means that a club like Sunderland, relegation scrappers last season, can now afford £10m players if they can convince them to come on board.
Some more interesting stats:
- Aston Villa will reap £42.3million after finishing in sixth place, compared with the £22.4million they collected in the 2006-07 season.
- Everton, too, have earned a huge improvement, with their fifth place, banking a cheque of £42.1million, compared with £25.3million last year.
- Newcastle United followed Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool into fourth place as the team most shown on live television. The result was that Newcastle earned almost £10million from 20 live screenings.
- Chelsea on the other hand had 18 live matches, bringing them £9.1million.
- Survival for Fulham meant £31.3million. Being the fourth-worst team in the league nets you more money than the 2nd best team earned last season. Jesus…
- Reading, Birmingham City and Derby this season – receive “parachute payments” for the first two seasons outside the top flight to soften their landing in the second tier. These payments are up from almost £6.5million to £11.4million.
The figure of £125million split between payments to the Football League, charities and other good causes in Britain and abroad puts the extraordinary amount of money pumping through English football into context – ten years ago, £125million was the Premier League’s total turnover. The Football League’s share of this is £77.4million, which includes £45.6million-worth of parachute payments, plus another £31.8million in payments to clubs and cash for youth development and community schemes.
Television revenue for 2007-08 season
(2006-07 in brackets)
Manchester United £49.3m (£32m)
Chelsea £45.6m (£30.9m)
Arsenal £47m (£29m)
Liverpool £45.4m (£28.4m)
Everton £42.1m (£25.3m)
Aston Villa £42.3m (£22m)
Blackburn Rovers £40.2m (£22m)
Portsmouth £40.4m (£23m)
Manchester City £39.7m (£21m)
West Ham United £36.8m (£21.1m)
Tottenham Hotspur £36m (£27.3m)
Newcastle United £39.2m (£21.2m)
Middlesbrough £34.2m (£20.5m)
Wigan Athletic £33.4m (£18.4m)
Sunderland £33.6m (£6.5m*)
Bolton Wanderers £32m (£24.6m)
Fulham £31.3m (£20.4m)
Reading £30.6m (£23.6m)
Birmingham City £29.8m (£6.5m*)
Derby County £29.1m (n/a)
Total £815,175,812 (£502,533,570)
* denotes parachute payment for clubs promoted from the Coca-Cola Championship.
[Source: Times Online]
this is why FIFA need to impose a european wages cap, before the whole thing goes crazy. A larger portion of this cash should be fed into lower league teams and grass-roots football. What difference does £49m make to Man U? Hargreaves and Carrick with a bit of loose change left over. Shocking.
Quite a bit of loose change – a young Ronaldo, for that matter
Glazer will be licking his fingers… He made 17 mil more than he did last year just from TV revenue.
It is also staggering how United received 32 mil last year and Derby were rewarded with 29 mil this year. But honestly, some of this money should go toward grasroots football and lower league teams or at least be distributed equally among all PL teams. That would creat some equality.
Our share of the cash means we can bid for Jonny Evans ahead of Sunderland,
Dream on Sima,my man!
does yanks are only letting Liverpool see a quarter of everything that comes in. Scum bags!!
good for arsenal we need as much cake as we can get to stay up with europes elite!
nice picture.. =)… it makes me wanna be rich and high…hahah
Football dollars scramble…………it’s all about the money
This is crazy because all of this money is being thrown around on signing players for alot more than they worth. This is retarding football so much because many players are driven by the money in their contract than actualy winning competitions. e.g Ronaldo…(80Mil) If he was interested in performing at the highest level he wouldnt leave the most competitive league in the world and a team who has been in the last 2 Chapions League final rounds and have won the premierleague 3 times in a row to do the same thing else where at a inferior league. Just saying when 80 million is involved Sir alex has no say, neither the fans!
SOLUTION:
Limit the number of players sold and bought in a season and pretty sure teams will only make significant signings ….Then it wont be about selling shirts and tv deals..it would be about the football.
KAKA RONALDO XAVI AND BENZEMA all signed in ONE transfer period
1. Real Madrid poses to be the biggest club in the world and quite frankly, they live up to their claims. They’re not called the Galacticos for nothing.
2. Your solution will only cause the clubs to pour in more money because if clubs with lots of spare cash are told to buy, lets say, three players, they will want those three players to be the finest they can get. Hence, clubs will start raising the bids to get the player they want. Plus, that will also force the managers to delay building a new strategy because they can’t get all the players they want for it. You can’t ask Nani to play DM, can you?
3. Xabi Alonso, not Xavi. Xavi plays for Barcelona.
4. I’m not a Real fan, neither a Cristiano fan nor do I care about the self-proclaimed most competitive league in the world but that’s another discussion.