Ker-ching! The Premier League has cashed out for the season - but why have Manchester United received more than higher-placed Arsenal? And what are Cardiff, Fulham, Reading and Wigan still raking in?
The Premier League divides its money in two very different ways: collectively and meritocratically.
Firstly, the collectivism: each Premier League side gets a large swathe of guaranteed, equally-divided revenue - which we’ve described here as “standardised payments”, totalling £79,151,989. This includes £35,301,989 as an equal share of the UK TV rights, £39,090,596 from overseas TV and £4,759,404 from central commercial activities.
In addition, every team is guaranteed at least 10 live games, bringing in just under £12.4m in facility fees – taking the guaranteed income from central Premier League pots to £91.5m.
Then there’s the payments which differ between teams. Most notable is the “merit payment” or positional prize money, rising by an annoyingly unround £1,941,609 per place. Sunderland’s base-level £1,949,609 is therefore half of Middlesbrough’s £3,883,218, a tenth of mid-table West Ham’s £19,416,090 and a twentieth of champions Chelsea’s £38,832,180.
Furthermore, as teams receive “facility fees” per game televised, those who are favoured by BT and Sky get a bigger slice of earnings. Five clubs (Burnley, Hull, Stoke, Sunderland and Swansea) were each televised the minimum 10 times, picking up the basic £12.4m – more than 15th-placed Swansea got in positional prize money. In all, 10 sides got more money from facility fees than the prize pot: Liverpool, Man United, Leicester and the bottom seven.
Liverpool's total of 29 (out of 38) televised games set a new record for a single Premier League season
However, teams who featured more frequently accordingly received more money. This explains why Manchester United ended up with a higher payout than Arsenal despite finishing a place below them - United's three extra TV games tipped the balance (see below). The exact same thing is true of why Manchester City raked in more than Tottenham.
Elsewhere, Liverpool's final-day clinching of a Champions League place – plus, arguably, their Europe-less 2016/17 campaign making it easier to switch games for coverage – helped them top the table for the number of Premier League games they had broadcast live on UK TV. Their total of 29 (out of 38) televised games set a new record for a single PL season – and earned them almost £34m in facility fees, more than their fourth-placed finish reward of a shade over £33m.
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Alex Reid is a freelance journalist and the former digital features editor at FourFourTwo. He has also written for the Guardian, talkSPORT, Boxing News and Sport magazine. Like most Londoners, he is a lifelong supporter of Aberdeen FC. He is deceptively bad in the air for a big man. He has never been a cage fighter.
