How English football clubs make money
Every club's turnover split four ways: matchday (gate receipts), commercial (sponsorship + retail), broadcast (TV rights), and player trading (profit on sales). Pulled from the Turnover note in each club's audited accounts.
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£271m broadcast (42.1%) £261m commercial (40.6%) £111m matchday (17.2%) £454k player trading (0.1%)
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£166m broadcast (27.6%) £272m commercial (45.4%) £162m matchday (27%)
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£127m broadcast (21.8%) £277m commercial (47.5%) £126m matchday (21.7%) £53m player trading (9%) £385k other (0.1%)
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£203m broadcast (41.4%) £201m commercial (40.9%) £87m matchday (17.7%)
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£161m broadcast (50.2%) £108m commercial (33.8%) £51m matchday (15.9%)
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£148m broadcast (51.4%) £25m commercial (8.6%) £6.7m matchday (2.3%) £91m player trading (31.6%) £17m other (6%)
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£151m broadcast (68.1%) £22m commercial (10.1%) £28m matchday (12.5%) £20m other (9.3%)
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£132m broadcast (62.3%) £41m commercial (19.5%) £39m matchday (18.2%)
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£129m broadcast (65.7%) £24m commercial (12.4%) £20m matchday (10.3%) £23m other (11.6%)
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£142m broadcast (72.4%) £31m commercial (15.6%) £16m matchday (8%) £8.0m other (4.1%)
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£129m broadcast (71.2%) £34m commercial (18.9%) £18m matchday (9.9%)
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£126m broadcast (73%) £25m commercial (14.3%) £22m matchday (12.7%)
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£1.6m broadcast (1.8%) £58m commercial (63.5%) £32m matchday (34.7%)
How English football clubs actually make money
Broadcast is the biggest line for almost every Premier League club. The PL splits ~£3bn of TV money per season between the 20 clubs roughly equally, with merit and facility payments stacked on top. Champions League clubs pile UEFA prize money in here too. For clubs outside the PL, broadcast falls off a cliff: Championship clubs get ~£10m, L1 ~£1m, L2 less.
Commercial is sponsorship + retail + merchandise + hospitality. This is where the big-six pull away: shirt deals worth £80m+ for Man City and Liverpool, training-kit deals, regional partners. Lower-league clubs have nominal commercial income.
Matchday is ticket sales + corporate hospitality + matchday catering. Bigger for clubs with bigger stadiums (Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs) and a less variable line through the season. For lower-league clubs, matchday is often the biggest single component.
Player trading = profit on player sales (the gain over their book value). Brighton's whole model — they bought Caicedo for £4m, sold for £115m, the £100m+ profit lands here. Most clubs declare this separately because it's lumpy by definition.
Source: parsed from the Turnover note in each club's iXBRL / paper accounts. Refreshed when new accounts are filed. Some smaller clubs lump these categories together and we don't split a lumped figure — they show only the total.
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