It appears the athletes of West Ham are going to be playing at the Olympic Stadium at Stratford, not Tottenham. Looking at the ‘Europe Deloitte Football money League’ today, as a Spurs fan, proved to be very exciting indeed, but also made me regretful that we cannot move to a new stadium.
Tottenham have risen 3 places from last year and now have the 12th biggest revenue of football clubs in Europe. The money that TV sponsorship brings to English clubs is clearly important, (there are 6 Premier League teams in the top 20), and Tottenham’s TV money from the Champions League is also obviously influential in generating large revenue. But, given that White Hart Lane is a smaller stadium than any of the others in the top 20, Tottenham clearly have a massive fan base and infrastructure, and refreshingly, that is where the revenue comes from.
What I find most interesting is that Spurs sit at 12th despite being the only side in the top 20 to have a ground capacity under 40,000. In fact, in the top 18, only 5 clubs have a Stadium that holds less than 60,000. They are Liverpool(8th), Chelsea(6th), Man City(11th), Tottenham and Lyon(14th).
Now, Liverpool achieve their revenue despite not having a massive stadium because they has built up an enormous foundation over the years which they rely on. It has been one of the biggest clubs in footballing history. But Chelsea and Man City, you could argue, have bought their reputation as a big club; they have definitely advanced it through vast investment and not grown naturally. And they all have larger stadiums than White Hart Lane. So Tottenham have the largest potential to increase their revenue even further.
Imagine if the club had a 60,000 seater stadium and sold 24,000 more tickets every home game of the season?
If we sold 24,000 more tickets at £40 a ticket that is almost £1m a game. In the 40+ home games in a season, Spurs could be making in excess of £40m a year with a bigger stadium.
Ticket sales alone would take Tottenham into the top 10 for revenue before you add on all the other income of a new stadium such as corporate facilities. A bigger stadium could realistically see Tottenham bringing in as much revenue as the likes of AC Milan and Juventus, now that is exciting.
When the fair play rules come into play, the amount of money a club can spend will be totally dependent on the amount of revenue they bring in from ‘football operations’, this means a big stadium is vital and no more billionaires can fund transfer splurges. Tottenham are already in a great position and have not even tapped into the resource of stadium re-development yet. That is what really gets my blood pumping; the potential for higher earnings.
Even more exciting is that some of these clubs, especially the likes of Chelsea and Man City, will have to make cuts. Their owners will not be able to bail out their financial imbalance like they have been doing.
Other big clubs like Man United have already fulfilled their revenue potentials, and their owners are in massive debts to their bank loans. Tottenham have neither of these problems.
There is still a long way to go before Spurs’ wealth reaches the heights of the top 5 clubs (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Arsenal) but as the current revenues display, they could soon be amongst the top 10. A stadium expansion would allow even higher promotion up the list. Tottenham may not be on their way to Stratford, but I still hope a stadium expansion is on its way.
