How much do Premier League clubs make from tickets?

Football fans - including Manchester United supporters at Old Trafford last weekend - have protested against rising ticket prices this season

Football fans can be tribal. But when it comes to ticket prices, there is unity.

"We are all fighting the same fight on ticket prices," said Manchester United Supporters' Trust CEO Duncan Drasdo.

"Clubs are exploiting loyalty and fans are united in saying enough is enough."

When 19 of the Premier League's 20 clubs raised their ticket prices before the 2024-25 season, the Football Supporters' Association (FSA) launched a campaign called 'Stop Exploiting Loyalty'.

Those protests have grown again this season, with some clubs removing concessionary discounts for the elderly and young people - and teams like Arsenal announcing increases for 2025-26.

The cost of competing for trophies, increasing operational expenses, and the threat of complying with financial regulations, have all been given as reasons for price hikes.

BBC Sport has analysed a new Uefa report showing the league's financial power and how much clubs make from tickets - but also the challenge of increased staffing levels and expensive running costs.

How much do clubs make from ticket sales?

Premier League clubs made a total of almost 1bn euros (£830m) from selling tickets to home matches in 2023, Uefa's European Club Finance and Investment Landscape report shows.

That figure is growing by about 10% per year, and is almost double that of Spain's La Liga (£481m) and Germany's Bundesliga (£430m).

The report uses a mixture of full financial reporting of more than 700 clubs for 2023, plus 2024 figures from 130 of Europe's biggest clubs.

Of the 10 clubs who generated the most income from gate receipts in 2024, six are English.

The same six Premier League clubs feature in the top 12 for another ticketing metric, which measures the money earned per fan, per ticket.

"What the figures show is that English top-flight clubs are doing very well financially in a whole number of different metrics," says Tom Greatrex, chair of the FSA.

"Healthy ticket revenue shows people are wanting to go - but also shows the ratcheting up of ticket prices in the past few years. That is manifesting itself in the protests and disenchantment we've seen."

The report also points out that "stadium expansions and/or increases in premium seating and hospitality have also doubled gate revenues at Paris St-Germain, Bayern [Munich], Liverpool and Manchester City since 2009".

Arsenal and Tottenham's positions are helped by sales of high-value hospitality seats at modern stadiums in London - one of the world's most-visited cities.

"What we have seen clubs do through stadium expansion is a huge focus on those seats being hospitality," says Dan Plumley, senior lecturer in sport finance at Sheffield Hallam University.

"On a basic financial level it makes sense, because you can generate more from that than a baseline seat.

"But if that is stopping your more average fan getting a ticket, that is something clubs are going to have to grapple with."

The report states the average amount made per fan from tickets is £29-£37 "for the majority of clubs".

How strong are Premier League clubs financially?

The Uefa report paints a similar picture to other research such as the annual Deloitte Money League - with Premier League clubs bringing in far more revenue (£6.2bn in 2023) than other European leagues.

However, English clubs reported a combined loss of £728m before tax.

TV rights deals are showing signs of plateauing, so clubs need to maximise matchday income and commercial and sponsorship revenues to try to offset significant spending on transfers, wages and running costs in order to turn a profit.

The report outlines some eye-watering spending figures:

• Premier League clubs spent £4bn on player wages in 2023, almost double second-placed Spain (£2.1bn).

• Four European clubs have squads that cost more than 1bn euros (£830m) to assemble by the end of 2024, and all are English - Chelsea (1.7bn euros/£1.4bn), Manchester City (1.3bn euros/£1.1bn), Manchester United (1.1bn euros/£920m), and Arsenal (1bn euros/£840m).

Chelsea's 2024 squad was found to be "comfortably the most expensive ever assembled", 24% higher than the previous record - the 2020 Real Madrid squad. The report also says Chelsea spent almost 2bn euros (£1.7bn) in transfer fees in the five-year period to 2024.

• Four of the five most profitable clubs - by pre-tax profits - in 2024 were German: Bayern (£53m), Borussia Dortmund (£41m), Lazio (£34m), Leipzig (£31m), Eintracht Frankfurt (£27m).

• Three of the five least profitable clubs in 2024 - by pre-tax losses - were English: Juventus (£164m), Chelsea (£93m), Aston Villa (£84m), Roma (£63m), Liverpool (£55m).

Plumley says: "Each individual club will have its own reasons for doing it, but raising ticket prices doesn't shift the dial massively in terms of the overall picture of the finances.

"I get that costs have gone up, we understand that side of the equation, but this is where it really grinds with fans."

Fans of some clubs have been contesting the loss of concessionary tickets for the elderly, juniors, and disabled supporters

So how many staff does it take to run a club?

Manchester United's controversial plans to make up to 450 redundancies, cut about 39% of its workforce and "return the club to profitability" have put a sharper focus on how many people are actually needed to run a football club - and the operating costs involved.

While transfer spending remains a club's biggest outgoing, the report says high inflation in areas such as utilities, plus the wages spent on more employees to expand commercial activity, is biting.

• Operating costs have risen by 12% across Europe, with a total of £1.5bn spent in the Premier League in 2023, almost £500m higher than second-placed Germany

• Operating costs plus non-player wages absorb just under half the revenue of big-five European league clubs

• In 2024, six Premier League teams featured in the top 10 for money spent on operating costs.

"Operations costs have increased - that's fair," Greatrex says. "But increasing ticket prices way beyond the level of inflation, year after year, which is what has started to happen with most clubs in the Premier League - and then trying to claim that PSR or financial fair play are the reason - is the clubs treating people as though they're idiots."

Salaries paid to non-footballer staff members have also risen sharply.

• The average top 20 club in Europe has 970 full-time employees - Barcelona have the most with 1,781

• Four Premier League teams have more than 1,000 full-time employees - Man Utd, Brighton, Liverpool and Man City

• Premier League clubs employed a total of 11,081 full-time employees by the end of 2023

• English top-flight clubs paid a total of £1bn in non-player wages in 2023. That total, which includes wages paid to staff members such as coaches, media departments and ticket office personnel, is more than twice that of second-placed Germany

• There was 19% inflation on non-player wages across Europe in 2023 and for the biggest clubs, head coach wages rose on average 21% in 2024

• That compares to a more modest average growth of 4.5% in player wages in 2024, which the report said was "essential for financial stability as clubs struggle with strong inflation".

The logic behind the rise in staffing numbers varies per club. Brighton, for example, employ a notoriously vast recruitment and scouting operation.

The report states that employee growth can be explained by clubs' desire to wring more from commercial and sponsorship deals.

Across Europe, income from commercial and sponsorship deals has risen by 39% since 2019.

"Commercial income is almost untapped in terms of potential and there is no restriction on the number of deals you can sign," Plumley says.

"But you have to throw more resource at that.

"There are more roles now in football clubs than ever before. Some of them are quite forward thinking.

"It's a natural consequence of how the game has evolved, because everyone is pushing for growth, growth, growth."