The Premier League is fast becoming the most expensive private members club in West London
What did the Premier League spend £324m on in just 2 years?
I recently wrote about how the Premier League’s latest accounts showed both impressive top line revenue growth but also concerning, ever increasing, operating costs.
Notwithstanding its penchant for the finer things in life, such as shareholder meetings at Nobu Mayfair, the Premier League is a simple business.
In addition to being an organiser of the league, the Premier League sells sponsorship and media rights. Its entire turnover relate to those two income streams. Its “cost of sales” is the money it pays away to clubs (including formerly relegated clubs receiving parachutes) each year - this amount has not kept pace with revenue due to rising costs. So, in FY2024 only 88% of revenue found its way to the clubs.
Out of the remaining gross profit, the Premier League deducts its operating expenses which are, essentially: i) various payments to support charities and the wider game; and ii) administrative expenses including the typical costs of any business - staff, offices, utilities and external costs like lawyers and insurance. Administrative expenses also include the outsourced production costs of recording its 380 fixtures.
Aside from various non-cash costs relating to foreign currency movements, that is it.
A simple business.
Inarguably, the most financially successful football league in the World
Revenues have moved up generally over the years with stepped increases as new media cycles have kicked in. Underlying revenue is up 22% since 2017. Growth has been steady but unspectacular with a dip during Covid for obvious reasons.
That is not to take anything away from the Premier League - as shown in the recent UEFA Financial Landscape report, it is clearly the number one football league in the World on every metric that matters.
The last couple of years have seen one of the biggest step changes with revenue up 16.8% since 2022. However, they have also seen regulatory challenges and rapidly increasing costs.
Total expenses up 23% in FY2024 but wider football support down in real terms since 2021
The FY2024 Premier League accounts disclosed that total operating expenses for 2024 rose 23% to over £456m for the year ended 31 July 2024, a one year increase of £85.4m and a rise of £130m in the 2 years since 2022.
The Premier League noted that this FY2024 increase was down to 3 main elements:
Hiring of additional staff;
Wider football support; and
Legal fees due to club regulatory matters.
The FY2023 rise was said to be down to elements 1 and 2.
The published accounts disclose the actual spend on two of those three elements: in FY2024 total employee costs of £43.2m were up from £36.6m (an 18% increase); and wider football support of £255.9m, only up modestly from £247m in 2023. Therefore, the cost driver over the last few years has not been wider football support and charity - this line has grown at less than inflation since 2021.
So, in some ways, the 23% rise hides the key increase in one element of operating expenses - the administrative expenses. Administrative expenses including the “hiring of additional staff” were over £200m for the first time in FY2024.
Keeping the lights on
Administrative expenses are the overhead costs of running an organisation — not always correlated to revenue generation but essential for operations.
For the Premier League, these typically include:
Staff costs – salaries, NI, pensions.
External legal and professional fees – lawyers, auditors, regulatory consultants.
IMG outsourced media production costs.
Establishment costs including office expenses – rent, utilities, IT systems and software, governance, media relations, training, recruitment, travel and subsistence and general admin like insurance.
The Premier League’s administrative expenses have grown rapidly since 2017 and are now almost 4 times the spend then. FY2024 costs were more than double FY2022 rising almost £110m in just two years.
Staff costs rising in absolute terms but falling in percentage terms
We know that the Premier League has been growing its internal team with 215 people in FY2022 rising to 302 in FY2024. Costs have risen steadily as the team has expanded. Total staff cost has doubled since 2021 with the addition of 120 people.
Historically, staff costs represented around 30% of the Premier League’s administrative costs. At £43.2m in 23/24 this was actually down to 22% and a relatively modest 1.2% of turnover. The Premier League added around 40 people in the year with salary costs rising £6.6m.
So far so good.
Of course, if the staff cost of £43.2m is accounted for, that leaves £157m (FY2023 equivalent: £87.1m) of administrative cost excluding employee expenses.
Legal fees of £50m - 6x the FY2024 budget
In September 2024, an insider mischievously told The Times that external legal costs had been just under £50m for the year to 31 July 2024.
The revelation that the Premier League had spent close to £50m on external legal costs in FY2024 was not a surprise - we knew Everton’s first PSR case cost almost £5m alone (of which only £1.6m was recovered) and by 31 July 2024, a large proportion of the costs relating to the City 115 case (which kicked off in September) were sunk. If anything, £50m looks light for FY2024.
That said, at £50m, it is only slightly less than the entire administrative expense in 2017 - staff, offices, legal. The lot.
Even more surprising is that this £50m legal cost was said to be six times the budgeted figure of around £8m. One would assume that the FY2024 budget had been based on the amount that had been actually spent in 2023 - of course, no such figure is broken down in the accounts so we are somewhat in the dark.
After legal costs of £50m, £157m becomes £107m of what we can call other “establishment expenses” (see above - offices, bills, non-legal external consultancy etc). And we can estimate a 2023 comparator of around £80m. We know from above that around £1.75m in 2024 and about £1.6m in 2023 were office and other leases. Significant but hardly making a major dent.
So what else are the Premier League spending money on?
If FY2023 total establishment expenses were, conservatively, £80m then in FY2024, the Premier League spent around £25m (another 33%) more on such costs in FY2024. We know that hardly any of this was additional lease cost. Nor was it PGMOL or audit cost (both actually reduced in the year) or payments to the FA . So what was it?
£25m may only be an extra £1.25m per club but it is a very substantial amount of money for the Premier League - its the equivalent of the Premier League’s entire FY2022 wage bill.
Moreover, if the leaked legal costs above are broadly accurate, then the Premier League has spent more than £180m (ie £9m per club) in 2 years just on keeping the lights on and paying other day to day bills. Remember thats £180m after all wider football support, all staff and all external legal costs. And this is not including any investments that are capitalised on the balance sheet either.
International expansion but modest incremental cost so far
The Premier League has been active in building out new future revenue streams by opening new offices in Manhattan and Beijing. So there will be a chunk of additional office cost but it does not appear to move the dial. The Premier League spent around £1.75m on offices and other leased assets in 2024 and this appears to be increasing to nearer £2.5m going forward. Beijing was not operational in FY2024 but Manhattan will have brought with it some administrative cost - bills, travel, insurance etc.
Just before the FY2024 year end, the Premier League also set up Premier League India Holdings Limited so further investment can be expected there too but it will not have cost or contributed much, if anything, in FY2024. This entity appears to be support for the new 3 year JioStar (2025/26 to 2027/28 seasons) broadcast and digital media deal. The deal is reported to be for around $54m and an additional $11m commitment for marketing initiatives to promote the Premier League in India.
“Premlix”: a new media model?
We know the Premier League is approaching a new phase of commercialisation. Not only is it opening foreign offices, holding more and more international events but it also recently announced it was bringing IMG-run, Premier League Productions in-house. After the FY2024 year end, clubs voted to establish a new in-house media operations business: “Launching for Season 2026/27, the Premier League will bring all international media content production and distribution in-house.” Premier League Studios incorporated in late November 2024, will obviously increase administrative expenses but should, eventually, drive higher profitability from media rights.
Premier League International Holdings Limited was set up in April 2023 and was consolidated into the Premier League’s accounts (and therefore costs) but has not yet filed its individual FY2024 accounts. Regardless, its costs have been modest and has only needed to issue £215,000 of capital since incorporation (in March 2025).
Each of these businesses appear to be focussed on future broadcast opportunities given they are headed by the Premier League’s Chief Media Officer, Paul Molnar.
The cost of Premier League Productions
For over two decades, IMG has powered the Premier League’s global broadcast machine through Premier League Productions. From full match coverage on non-domestically aired games to multilingual commentary, daily studio shows and international distribution, IMG has produced the world feed seen in over 180 countries. We saw an insight into one of the relevant legal clauses in a recent Premier League case.
IMG is busy. For around 200 of the 380 Premier League matches each season (those not broadcast domestically by Sky or TNT), IMG is the host broadcaster: they send the outside broadcast trucks, direct the cameras, and create the full match broadcast. For the rest (where Sky or TNT are the UK host), IMG adds unilateral cameras, pitch-side presentation, commentary lines, and builds the international world-feed from Sky/TNT footage.
IMG then assembles the clean world feed for all 380 matches (even those Sky/TNT produce), adding multilingual commentary beds, graphics, VAR angles, and ISO cameras. This is distributed globally to over 180 rights holders.
IMG’s work is not cheap especially in a 4k HDR world. We don’t know the precise cost of IMG’s services but it now appears to be around £35-40m per annum. In earlier years, we know if could not have exceeded £30m as there does not seem to have been that much left over in the operating cost line. But even at assumed £40m each for FY2023 and FY2024, there remains substantial unaccounted expenses.
£50m in 2 years unaccounted for?
There is no doubt FY2024 was an exceptionally expensive year for the Premier League. It explained the increase in costs over FY2023 in 3 line items but in reality there remains substantial costs that are not specified and that appear incomparable to prior years.
Reassuringly expensive?
In just two years, the Premier League’s administrative expenses have totalled £324m. This is more than it spent in the four years that went before them. Nobody I spoke to whilst exploring this topic had any ideas (or at least none they could share) for what these substantial unspecified amounts relate to.
Premier League clubs’ accountants and owners must surely be asking why such an ostensibly simple business has spent £16m per club in just 24 months on paying the bills.
Membership of this exclusive club has never been more expensive.