In equalling one record, Liverpool can be assured of breaking others this season. A 20th English title, moving them level with Manchester United, has guaranteed revenues will leap to new heights and make this the most lucrative season in their history.
Liverpool’s campaign was elevated to being among its best by Sunday’s 5-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur, and the rewards will go beyond a trophy and three dozen medals. It is forecast that Liverpool’s annual revenues will break the £700million mark for the first time.
Liverpool’s growth in revenue means that Manchester United, the rival that flexed greater financial muscle for all but one of the previous 32 Premier League seasons, will be among those bettered on and off the pitch in 2024-25.
How much is winning the Premier League worth to Liverpool?
The reward for reclaiming a title last won in 2019-20 will bring Liverpool their greatest payday from the Premier League. Manchester City banked £176m in each of their last two title-winning campaigns and Liverpool can expect a similar windfall.
No rival can have higher merit payments than the team finishing in first, while Liverpool are also assured of the highest facility fees payout after being televised 29 times in the UK this season, the same as Arsenal. When all the sums are totted up, it might be that Liverpool walk away with as much as £180m, or more, from the Premier League pot.
Matchday revenue should be up this season (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Then there are the other benefits. The Athletic previously reported in February that a Nike deal that is now in its final months will see the American kit manufacturers pay an additional £2m for Liverpool winning the title. A nominal sum given the annual value of Nike’s contract (worth roughly £60m a year), but a parting gift before a new arrangement begins with Adidas in August.
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It is not uncommon for other commercial partners to also stump up small performance-related bonuses and Liverpool will continue to grow commercial revenues that have doubled in the past seven years, to £308million. Albeit not directly attributable to the successes of that campaign, the club’s last title win five years ago saw commercial income rise 15 per cent year on year.
The numbers will be impressive when accounts are made public next year, but a Premier League title will bring increased merchandise sales, greater fan engagement and a strengthened brand. While teams such as United and Chelsea have floundered in recent times, Liverpool have enhanced their image and appeal to commercial partners in a season that has taken them back to the summit of English football.
On top of a shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered, a sleeve sponsorship with Expedia and training centre naming rights from AXA, Liverpool have teamed up with a string of blue-chip companies in the past two years, including UPS, Google, Peloton and Japan Airlines. That commercial income of £308million for 2023-24 will inevitably be higher again for this season.
“We’ve only really seen a huge step-change in our commercial growth over the past five years,” Liverpool’s commercial director, Ben Latty, told The Athletic last year. “I feel like we’re only just getting started.”
So, a bumper year is guaranteed?
Absolutely. And it does not stop with winning the Premier League. For all there might have been disappointment at exiting the Champions League in the round of 16 when beaten on penalties by Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool’s exploits in UEFA’s biggest competition sharpened their financial edge.
That near-perfect run through the group stage, topping the 36-club rankings, was worth in the region of £85million in prize money. Previous seasons have yielded more — such as when finishing runners-up in 2022 to claim £102m — but this year’s return represents a huge mark-up from the £23m won in the Europa League last term.
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Matchday revenue, too, has never been greater. Liverpool will have played 27 home games by the time this season is out and, unlike last season when delays were encountered over the construction of the Anfield Road stand, there have been 60,000 in attendance every time. Matchday revenue went through the £100m barrier for the first time last season and will have climbed again.
The only thing curbing Liverpool’s exponential financial growth this season? Not being part of FIFA’s Club World Cup in the U.S. this summer.
Manchester City and Chelsea were the two Premier League clubs to gain a place at the 32-team event beginning in June, with both of those in line to win £97m if they were to come out with the trophy.
Arne Slot’s success will have boosted merchandise sales (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)
How do Liverpool stack up against their biggest foes?
The wider context is Liverpool’s improving strength against rivals in both the Premier League and Europe. This season will be only the second time in the Premier League era that Liverpool’s turnover has exceeded that of Manchester United, with the 2021-22 campaign the only previous outlier. A narrow £11m advantage, back then, was primarily down to Liverpool reaching the 2022 Champions League final.
The gap between Liverpool and United now, though, will widen to levels not seen before in the modern era. As recently as 2016-17, United’s revenues exceeded those of Liverpool by over £200m, but the contrasting fortunes of the two north-west rivals this season will continue a huge swing.
The Athletic’s BookKeeper, Chris Weatherspoon, has forecast that Liverpool will become only the second English club after Manchester City to go beyond the £700m mark for annual turnover.
City might yet retain the advantage held over Liverpool, especially if the Club World Cup brings a lucrative summer, but ground has undoubtedly been clawed back.
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Liverpool’s last standing in the Deloitte Money League, the annual assessment of the richest clubs in world football, was eighth, but there is a high chance of a jump into the top five on the back of this season’s on-pitch successes. Given Liverpool were 12th in those same rankings as recently as 2012-13 (narrowly ahead of German club Schalke in 13th), it is a measure of improving financial strength in the past decade.
This is Liverpool’s boom era, in more ways than one.
(Top photo: Luis Diaz by Carl Recine via Getty Images)
