⚽️ The Premier League is Continuing to Break Revenue Records

Happy Monday everyone, some statistics for you from Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson in Dallas last week:

• 72,300 attendance at AT&T Stadium in Texas (biggest boxing attendance at that venue)

• $18.1m gate (biggest non-Vegas gate in boxing history)

• 108m viewers for main event (most watched boxing fight of all time)

• 74m viewers for Taylor Serrano (most watched Womens event in any sport in history)

And maybe the most notable for me:

• 56% of all homes in the US between 00:00 and 01:00 ET had Netflix on

I didn’t watch that fight, I was not one of the 108m people watching. But my word those numbers are staggering.

Now, the Premier League has had an interesting week…

Two things happened this week that make the subject of todays newsletter:

1. The Premier League reported record broadcast cycle revenues

2. Associate Party Transaction rule changes affecting most PL clubs

We start with record Premier League revenues.

The Premier League works to three-year broadcast cycles. The current cycle runs from 2022 to 2025, the next cycle spans from 2025 to 2028. At a shareholders meeting this week the Premier League reported that revenues spanning the next cycle have grown by a notable 17% from the current cycle:

• 2022-2025: £10.5bn

• 2025-2028: £12.25bn (+17%)

This is wild considering the £10.5bn figure previously was a big surprise at the time.

The revenue figure above is an accumulation of all revenue streams. Domestic broadcast rights, international broadcast rights, sponsorship deals, licensing deals, everything.

The increase has been largely driven by a significant rise in overseas broadcast revenue, which had also outpaced domestic TV earnings in the last cycle for the first time ever.

To give you an idea, the Premier League just announced a new broadcast deal in Thailand with the Jasmine Network:

• Current Deal (2022-2025): 3yr / $131m

• New Deal (2025-2028): 3yr / $233m (+77%)

They’ve also just negotiated a brand new sponsorship deal with Guinness worth £52m over three years too.

Despite domestic broadcast revenues showing signs of stagnation for the first time, international broadcast deals like the Jasmine Network tie-up show the strength of the league around the world.

I do truly wonder of things will ever to slow down.

Elsewhere Premier League clubs voted 16-4 to amend the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules.

The ruling means that shareholder loans, a way for owners to inject money into clubs, must now meet fair market value (FMV) standards, including charging commercial interest rates.

In more… layman terms, the following must happen:

• Any club with shareholder loans on their books must convert their loans to equity by January 11

• Any shareholder loans still in place after that cut-off point must be submitted as an Associate Party Transaction and be subject to an FMV assessment.

These are the worst five worst offenders in the league currently with respect to shareholder loans:

1. Everton £415m

2. Brighton £373m

3. Arsenal £259m

4. Chelsea £146m

5. Liverpool £137m

The interest rate via the Bank of England currently sits at 4.75%. If none of these clubs converted these loans to equity by January 11, they will have to submit an APT to the Premier League.

The Premier League will likely apply the “fair” level of interest to these loans meaning a reporting of £4.75m in interest for every £100m “owed”.

That’s a lot of money for some of the above clubs and will mean some interesting PSR calculations in the years to come.

Man City currently have a £0 shareholder loan balance on their accounts but have been a big beneficiary in the past. They oppose these rule changes.

As do Arsenal… unsurprisingly!

Everton are already in a very tight spot financially so they have some decisions to make over the Christmas period!

An interesting week for the biggest league in the world.

We return next week to discuss Matchroom, one of the biggest sporting companies in the UK.

Until then.