North West football clubs generated £1.8bn in revenues last year

The 17 Premier League and Football League clubs in the North West generated revenues of £1.8bn in 2016/17, according to the Annual Review of Football Finance from the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.

 
The five North West Premier League clubs generated combined revenues of £1.7bn, around a third of the £5.5bn earnt by the top 92 clubs in English football.

Manchester United (£581m, first), Manchester City (£476m, second) and Liverpool (£365m, fifth) all featured in the top five clubs by revenue in 2016/17, followed by Everton (£171m, 10th) and Burnley (£122m, 17th).

Manchester United also recorded the highest operating profit in the Premier League (£190m), whilst Manchester City recorded the third-highest with £92m.

Liverpool made an operating profit of £64m (sixth), followed by Burnley with £48m (eighth) and Everton with £25m (14th).

The North West Premier League clubs were watched by 4.6m fans, up from 4m the previous year due to Burnley’s return to the top flight.

Manchester United had the highest attendance of any Premier League club with a total of 1.4m and an average per home league match of 75,305.

In terms of wage costs, North West Premier League clubs made up three of the top four.

Manchester City paid £264m in wages, followed by Manchester United in second and Liverpool in fourth, who paid £263m and £208m respectively.

The 92 Premier League and Football League clubs recorded combined revenues in excess of £5.5bn for the 2016/17 season.

With a new broadcast cycle commencing in 2016/17 for Premier League clubs, the 20 clubs generated record revenues of £4.5bn, 25 per cent higher than in the previous season.

In the Championship, revenues grew 30 per cent to a record £720m in 2016/17. League 1 clubs increased revenue by seven per cent to 146m, while League 2 clubs’ revenue increase by six per cent to £91m.

Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: “The financial results of the class of 2016/17 are the most impressive we have ever seen.

“Just a decade ago, 60 per cent of Premier League clubs were making an operating loss whereas in the 2016/17 season, all clubs were profitable. In addition, and for the first time ever, Premier League clubs’ revenues have grown at a faster rate than wages over a ten-year period.”

Tim Bridge, a director in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said: “Financially speaking, the three leagues below the Premier League are now considerably larger than their peers at equivalent levels in the football pyramid, anywhere in the world.

“In no small part, this is due to the financial success of the Premier League and the filtering down effect in the form of parachute and solidarity payments. Parachute payments to Championship clubs made up almost a third of that division’s revenue.”