“For the patient who is sick, the treatment begins with a roof over his head.”
The British may have one of the oldest and most widely spoken languages on the planet, but there is always a tickle of envy at the linguistic flourish found on the tongues of our European cousins.
In this case, it is the Spanish, who always seem to have a way with words, and this particular Spaniard, an executive with a leading football club, is rather artistically describing the changing face of European football and the rather splendid roofs we are seeing pop up across the continent.
The executive said: “In the past, the local lord or baron would build a castle for defence but also to draw in the community and farmers to create revenue. What we see in football with these modern stadiums today is the same.”
Football’s sickness is not widely acknowledged, but the infection is undoubtedly widespread. People may instinctively know that the lower levels are a constant financial struggle, but it is among football’s elite where the pinch is about to be felt imminently. The paradox of the Premier League is that it is, without doubt, the biggest and most successful football league on the planet (which gets talked about a lot) while its clubs lose nearly a billion pounds a year (which doesn’t).
Indeed, combine the 20 clubs’ financials and the overarching picture is somewhat scary. A league that made £1.5bn profit in the five years from 2013-18 plunged to a £3.2bn loss for the next five years, with no consensus on how to fix it. The bad news is not only that half its constituent members are continuing to fight for the right to spend and lose more money every year, it is that the financial picture is getting even worse.
Speak to investors and executives around the league and they would dismiss fears over the sustainability of clubs by pointing to the intense demand for these games and these brands. The evidence for that, they would say, is broadcast revenue. Indeed, for the entire history of the Premier League since its 1992 breakaway, clubs have got away with being run poorly because the money printer – in this case, surging broadcast rights – continued to whir.
Every three or four years, the league would sell a vastly increased broadcast rights deal to be distributed among the clubs and plug the financial holes that clubs had created for themselves by overspending on transfers and player wages. Life was good.
The Premier League was not alone in this. Constantly borrowing from future earnings by spending indiscriminately on players was in effect the business model of most European football clubs for a decade or more, an age of excess. But now comes the test.
Broadcast rights deals for every major league are now flatlining or even declining. La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A all suffered single-digit percentage dips on their latest pacts, while the Premier League claimed theirs was flat but they added more games to the package, meaning that in real terms (£ per game) the value decreased. Some smaller leagues have taken far more dramatic hits, with French broadcast revenues almost halving last summer.
In the same way that newspaper business models sputtered and failed a decade ago amid digital expansion, the same is happening to broadcasters now but with little in the way of robust alternatives. There are new streamers like DAZN losing £1bn a year as they try to build a viable platform, while the old-school cable and satellite businesses have largely given up on a long-term future and are solely trying to manage their own decline.
It makes it a tight, uncompetitive and uninspiring bidding environment when these rights tender processes come up, and the arms race between broadcasters, as seen between BT Sport and Sky Sports in the early 2010s, is something we may never see again. Broadly this means clubs are waking up to new realities in the business of football as we head to the back end of the 2020s: costs must go down, revenues must go up.
To achieve that first point, it is increasingly clear that the financial controls we see being instituted by the leagues are going to be necessary – clubs have shown time and again that they simply can’t be trusted to self-regulate. Anyone who has followed the hysterical pushback on profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) in the Premier League, or the exploitation of numerous loopholes in those same rules, will know that the clubs of England’s top flight have been protesting wildly at the prospect of not being able to spend themselves into a death spiral.
While half of Premier League clubs and half of Serie A clubs are now owned by North American investors, the idea of a Major League-inspired salary cap to limit spending is still seen as something that will never happen. The fear of legal action from players’ unions and the fractured landscape of football means the leagues face external competition from other leagues as well as internal competition between their clubs. If the Premier League instituted a salary cap, La Liga and the Bundesliga could potentially take advantage by stealing top talent. It is, therefore, a non-starter.
Increasingly, though, the amount that teams can spend on salaries, transfer fees, agents’ fees and anything related to their squad will be tied to revenues and the amount of money the club can generate. That is only a way of slowing rising costs, though. Increasing revenue is a different beast altogether.
For most clubs, their revenue comes in three ways: broadcast, commercial and match day. The mix varies slightly from league to league and club to club, but on average broadcast (53%) trumps commercial (32%) and then matchday (14%) quite significantly in the Premier League. Knowing that you have no control over the broadcast portion, and that commercial is very competitive, there is widespread acknowledgement now that teams need to crank up their matchday revenues or be left behind.
“Tottenham is probably the best example of that,” says Charlie Brooks, head of communications and marketing at leading architectural firm Populous. “They effectively doubled their entire revenue from the new stadium and made a massive leap in their matchday and non-matchday revenue from the venue. And that’s what everyone’s looking at.”
Spurs’ gleaming new stadium is probably Populous’s signature achievement. To my mind, the finest stadium in Europe (narrowly beating Munich’s Allianz Arena) and a veritable cash machine for a club whose on-field performances mean that revenue can be lumpy at the best of times. Passing £500m in revenues last year, Spurs now eclipse local rivals Arsenal in all three revenue categories and make the fourth-
most money in the Premier League. Not bad for a side that sits in the bottom half of the actual league table.
While fans of other clubs mocked the planned cheese room with one-way glass that would allow guests to see the players in the tunnel (it never came into existence), the reality is that Tottenham’s multiple layers of hospitality have driven huge increases in revenue, while its ability to host concerts year-round, including a hugely profitable five-night run when Beyoncé was on tour – as well as NFL games – further contributes to an impressive picture.
“Clubs are looking at, OK, how do I design a venue that is multi-purpose, whether that’s multi-sport or concerts or conferencing or other types of events, so that I can get maximum value from that venue, you know, every day of the year, not just on match days?” adds Brooks.
“And how do I then create different layers of experience in the venue that mean I can maximise revenue on the hospitality side? Clubs are clearly having to look at their general admission and hospitality strategy, but if you go from three or four levels of hospitality to 15 levels of hospitality, you’re able to bring a lot more revenue on that side.”
Manchester United’s proposed 100,000-seat new Old Trafford sounded ambitious when co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said he hoped it would be “the Wembley of the north”. Now, according to architect Norman Foster, it will be not just a stadium but a “global destination” and a “mixed-use mini-city.”
According to analysis by Deloitte, more than 300 sport stadium projects (renovations or new builds) are under way globally in 2025. This trend reflects an increased industry-wide focus on diversifying revenue streams and finding revenues beyond football where possible.
“In addition to increasing capacity to service excess demand, clubs are focused on building smarter entertainment destinations that deliver better experiences for players, artists, fans, and the wider community throughout the year,” say Deloitte.
If the still-unsponsored Tottenham Hotspur Stadium or Barcelona’s Spotify Camp Nou represent the best-case scenario in terms of revenue uplift, others are willing to take half-measures in order to try to bridge the gap without committing to a full rebuild.
“In London you have Fulham, who have built a new stand on the river that is multiple different layers of hospitality and even a private members’ club, and you have Crystal Palace, who are hoping to break ground this summer on a huge new stand with a ton of hospitality options,” a commercial executive at one Premier League club tells the New European.
“These are clubs who are trying to build up their commercial and hospitality revenues, taking advantage of their location and the demand for corporate experiences in London.”
Everton are about to move into their stunning new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock this summer while Newcastle are in talks over a full rebuild on Leazes Park. Manchester City are expanding a stadium built only 20 years ago. Arsenal hope to soon follow suit.
As much as fans beg for big-money signings, the reality in this new era of squad-cost ratios, profitability and sustainability rules and financial fair play is that teams can no longer spend themselves into debt in the way they used to – though they do still try incredibly hard. These glittering new stadiums rising out of the ground are not just a place to watch football – for many of these clubs, they are the best hope of a sustainable financial future.
Ed Malyon is a consultant and investor in the sports industry. He writes FootBiz, a newsletter about the business of football
Europe’s superstadia
Camp Nou
Barcelona
Rebuild capacity 105,000
Estimated opening date June 2026
‘New Trafford’
Manchester United
Newbuild capacity 100,000
Estimated opening date July 2030
Santiago BernabÉu
Real Madrid
Rebuild capacity 78,297
Opened January 2025
New Milan Stadium:
AC Milan* / Inter Milan*
Newbuild capacity 75,500
Estimated opening date July 2030
Allianz Arena
Bayern Munich
Newbuild capacity 75,024
Opened May 2005
Metropolitano
Atlético Madrid
Newbuild capacity 70,692
Opened July 2017
Stadio Olimpico
Roma?/Lazio
Rebuild capacity 70,634
Opened June 2008
Nou Mestalla
Valencia
Newbuild capacity 70,400
Estimated opening date July 2027
Stade Vélodrome
Marseille
Rebuild capacity 67,934
Opened June 2014
Leazes Park
Newcastle United
Newbuild capacity 65,000
Estimated opening date TBC
* replacing San Siro, current capacity 80,018
?Roma are moving to a purpose-built 55,000-seat stadium in 2028
