Total Value: The current enterprise value of a Premier League franchise based on a team-specific multiple of revenue. The value factors in team-related businesses and real estate holdings, like Manchester United's eight owned properties, highlighted by its home stadium, Old Trafford, and Aon Training Complex. City Football Group has an extensive startup portfolio and owns 13 clubs around the globe (New York City FC is excluded from Man City's valuation—see our Methodology for more details).

Revenue: Total team revenues are displayed for the past three seasons (2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22), excluding transfer fees and value added taxes. Revenue consists of three main buckets: broadcast, commercial and matchday. All revenue figures are displayed in U.S. dollars using the average daily exchange rate during that particular fiscal year. Those were £1 = $1.33 for the 2021-22 season; £1 = $1.35 for the 2020-21 season; and £1 = $1.26 for the 2019-20 season. Those revenue streams include:

(i.) Broadcast is largely comprised of both domestic (in the UK) and international media deals. It is the largest revenue component for all Premier League teams outside the Big Six. National media rights are held by Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon Prime Video, and there are more than 30 broadcast partners outside the UK Prize money from competitions is also typically included in this area.

The Premier League distributes its broadcast revenue based on a formula that paid each team an equal share of roughly $130 million last season, then a further tiered payment based on the number of broadcast appearances in the UK and abroad. Clubs also earned a tiered payment based on their finish in the Premier League standings.

The Premier League suspended play for three months in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. It resumed June 17 and concluded July 26. Teams' fiscal years typically end in May or June, but some teams extended their fiscal year to July to capture the full Premier League broadcast payment. Other teams pushed those revenues to the 2020-21 fiscal year.

International rights will top domestic rights for the first time during the three-year cycle from 2022-2025.

(ii.) Commercial revenue is derived from sponsorships, advertising, corporate hospitality, catering and non-matchday events. A team's jersey sponsor and kit deal generate massive sums for the top clubs. Emirates pays Arsenal more than $50 million a year to display its name on the team's home and away jerseys, while Manchester United's Adidas pact is worth at least $100 million a year and includes the rights to sell merchandise globally stamped with the three-stripes logo.

(iii.) Matchday revenue from ticket sales, membership income, cup competitions and preseason tickets is generally the smallest revenue component for teams. Total matchday revenue for the entire Premier League was only $45 million during the 2020-21 season, as teams played almost all their matches without fans because of COVID-19 restrictions. It bounced back to $1 billion during the 2021-22 season.

Full Transparency

Sportico is committed to transparency, including provision of detailed methodology and sourcing information below. For any additional questions, please contact sports valuations reporter Kurt Badenhausen at kbadenhausen@sportico.com, who led in the composition of this report.


Market Franchise Valuations

To derive the market value of the 20 Premier League franchises, Sportico calculated each team's revenue, relying on publicly available information and financial records. Revenue totals were subject to a team-specific multiplier, which remains the standard metric for valuing sports teams in transactions. Earnings can have dramatic fluctuations from year to year, based on player spending and special expenses.

We conducted interviews with those knowledgeable of team finances, including 10 sports bankers and attorneys who actively work on soccer transactions. We traded candor for anonymity. This information was vetted by multiple teams, industry experts and investors.

The team-specific multipliers were based on multiple factors, including: historical sales, market (size, saturation and interest by prospective owners), strength of brand, on-field performance (historical and recent), terms of facility lease, debt burden and additional obligations, as well as expected future team and league economics.

The threat of relegation results in a dramatically larger spread in revenue multiples than in U.S. sports leagues. Multiples ranged from 1.25 times revenue for multiple teams, like Brentford, to 8 for Manchester United.

Given the business disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, we utilized the last three full seasons of revenue (2018-19, 2020-21 and 2021-22) and applied the multiples to that average as a baseline. We adjusted the totals for clubs that were in the EFL Championship during any of those seasons.


Team Review

Premier League clubs all file their financial statements with Companies House, the UK's registrar of companies. Sportico used those filings, the Deloitte Football Money League publication, and our own estimates to fill in any gaps for the 2021-22 season.

Among the 20 Premier League franchises, multiple teams or their parent companies participated with Sportico by providing or validating information, while others did not comment or respond.

We excluded Major League Soccer franchises that are majority-owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (Colorado Rapids) and City Football Group (NYCFC) from the valuations of Arsenal and Manchester City under the premise that they likely would be sold independently of the Premier League clubs.