Manchester United supporters met with a sobering end to 2024. No sooner had Newcastle United cantered to a simple 2-0 victory at Old Trafford on Monday night to deepen their festive gloom, Ruben Amorim was fronting up to the potential for even greater ignominy over the next 12 months.
“We have to acknowledge our position,” United’s head coach told a press conference. “I think people are tired of excuses in this club. Sometimes I talk about relegation. Because our club needs a shock.”
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And what a surprise that would be.
United have remained a fixture in English football’s elite since gaining promotion from Division Two Tommy Docherty in 1974-75, a year after he knocked them out, increasing their trophy collection and wealth by a leap transformative to the era of fashion.
Relegation was intended to be a fear only for others, but Amorim allows himself to locate little convenience in the progress of seven problems that United, 14th, maintains in the last 3 of the Premier League in the middle of the season.
United have stalled and, admittedly far away in the distance, is the still improbable prospect of worse. Just how would they, one of European football’s strongest financial powerhouses, cope with dropping down to the second-tier Championship? The Athletic considers the unimaginable…
This is the only flow of profits that we can be maximum, since it should be an assignment if United loses its state of the Premier League. And would definitely sting him.
United’s most recent accounts outlined that £222million was received in broadcast revenue during the 2023-24 season, a number that eclipses the total turnover of some other Premier League clubs. The bulk of that (72.9 per cent) came from the Premier League pot but a return to the Champions League also saw numbers enhanced through European football governing body UEFA’s distributions last term.
Much of this would disappear in the occasion of relegation.
United is expected to have the parachute bill granted to the clubs that leave the Premier League and a first season in the league would allow them to pocket 55 % of the equivalent distribution of elite television rights. This would fall to forty -five % for the next crusade if they were not transmitted without delay and at 20 % the following, if the promotion in the Premier League did not receive in this era.
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That scenario currently means a relegated club earn £43.6million in their first Championship season but there will be a marginal increase to that figure as the Premier League begins its next broadcasting cycle from 2025-26. Including the central distribution given to the 24 Championship clubs, it would be safe to assume United’s TV revenues might be as low as a quarter of those last published should the unthinkable happen over the next five months.
Their existing difficulties will also not give a contribution to this season’s budget. United units are in danger of being without European football completely for the time being in 35 years and the continental level is a source of profit for them. The report states that £166. 3 million has been generated through broadcast and appropriate earnings from European competitions over the past 3 years, an additional £55. 4 million average consistent with the season.
The current standing of 14th would also see their Premier League prize money slashed if fortunes are not improved. Every place in the table is effectively worth £3.1million in merit payments through the current broadcast deal.
“It would be the same situation that happens to any club in terms of a revenue hit,” says Dr Dan Plumley, senior lecturer in sport business management at Sheffield Hallam University.
“The net difference between what the team in the Premier League receives in TV cash and a team that receives cash from parachutes during the first year, would be with a relief of £60 million in revenue.
“If the unthinkable were to happen, that figure wouldn’t hurt United too much on the revenue line because their revenues were pushing towards £700million. But it’s everything else that comes with playing in the league below. What it would do to the brand, which is hard to measure, the commercial contracts and the impact of those.”
United have long been a fashionable advertising giant, making more than £300m in the last two seasons. This represented Cent-consistent 46 of its annual turnover last season, reflecting its dependence on an advertising force that other clubs can only dream of.
Relegation would not suddenly see commercial partners all jumping ship but United will inevitably struggle to replicate the deals they have typically attracted if they are a second-division side.
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Adidas, for example, has already written in its long-term agreement that supporting a championship club would not have the same appeal. United’s accounts imply that its kit manufacturer, which has an existing contract until 2035, “may decrease applicable bills by one year if the men’s first team does not participate in the English prime minister this year. “Adidas also have the option to end the £90m sterling contract consistent with the year with a completion of a full season if United are relegated.
It is industry standard for kit sponsors to reduce their financial commitments to a relegated club as exposure diminishes and United, as the Adidas deal underlines, could not hope to be insulated from awkward conversations with their string of major partners.
United’s three-year deal with technology company Snapdragon, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, is worth $225m (£180m) and doesn’t even have a clause for those who haven’t qualified for the Champions League and have left the Prime Minister’s League. , their existing arrangements for educational kit sponsor and Match shirt sleeve sponsor expire in 2025, so relegation this season would be terrible for a club going to the market for new deals.
Making comparisons with other established clubs that descended in recent times has been especially useful given the enormous stature of United, but illustrate the small advertising powers in the championship.
Aston Villa’s revenue stream more than shrank from £28m to £13m when they fell at the end of 2015-2016, and Newcastle United suffered the same fate. after the same fate came to them that season.
This is the smallest of United’s three major revenue streams, but perhaps the one that would ride out the storm best in the Championship.
No club in England attract the number of fans United do, and there is little to suggest their current sell-out crowds in the region of 73,000 at Old Trafford would not be replicated outside of the Premier League. There would even be the prospect of four additional home games, with Championship clubs having 46 league fixtures per season to the 38 of top-flight sides.
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The pricing design of championship tickets and hospital packages is said to be the biggest influence on FitDay’s revenue. United enthusiasts have already returned to member tickets reaching £66 and the removal of concession prices, with new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe telling United that we’re fanzine that it didn’t make sense for tickets to be a home game to charge less than those of Premier League Fulham’s look.
That has brought concerns about more rises next season, and relegation would not necessarily mean markedly reduced matchday revenues. Newcastle, relegated from the Premier League a year earlier, barely saw a minor downturn in the amount of money coming through the turnstiles at St James’ Park as they won the 2016-17 Championship title.
United’s matchday revenues of £136million, in theory, would hold relatively firm if supporters continued to pack out what is still English club football’s biggest stadium.
United have been sailing close to the wind with the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) recently, and the big losses suffered in 2021-22 and 2023-24 had consequences. There is confidence around the club that United have stayed within the £105m Loss Limit over a three-year period for a Premier League club, but moving up to the Championship would present them with a new set of rules.
United would effectively be allowed to lose £83million if they were a Championship club in 2025-26, with two seasons assessed under the Premier League’s limits and one under those of the EFL, the body that runs the next three divisions of the English game. That would bring obvious challenges as revenues contract and, as happens at so many clubs who get relegated to the Championship, would require player sales to help with compliance.
Forecasting United’s precise PSR position in the event of them going down, though, would be difficult beyond an acceptance of the inevitable challenges.
“You enter uncharted territory,” Dr. Plumley adds. We know that the losses have been raised for United and close to the limit, however, we have no reference or parallels to be drawn, because we are talking about a club where relegation would be unimaginable. “
It is not unusual for a player’s contract to be encouraged through his functionality and for many Premier League groups, it is prudent to also upload a relegation clause to those transactions. Salaries minimize between 30 and 50% if the groups fall, save clubs at a time when the source of income minimizes.
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United’s annual wage bill at the last count was £365million — £1m a day — and the clauses in player contracts that have carried greatest significance in recent times have been to do with whether or not United qualify for the Champions League. There has been no mention of relegation clauses in United’s accounts, because they do not include them in player contracts.
Among the existing squad, players whose contracts expire at the end of this season are Christian Eriksen, Victor Lindelof, Jonny Evans, Tom Heaton, Harry Maguire and Amad; The latter two are in negotiations and have contracts that come with a one-year extension that the club can activate.
That would be a big unknown. Ratcliffe has made no secret of his plans to build a “Wembley of the North” — a new home for United that could house as many as 100,000 supporters if all was to be approved.
Either a new stadium close to the current Old Trafford site or a redevelopment of the existing ground would transform United’s matchday revenues but a project of that scale will carry huge costs — a conservative estimate would be in the region of £2billion being needed. United have spent months garnering support for the wider regeneration of the surrounding Trafford Wharfside area.
Would it be any of this imaginable if they were a championship club? Perhaps yes, since United will continue to be one of the largest and most productive acting clubs in English football, even if they have fallen to the level of the moment. But investment wishes would require effective of the Premier League and much more.
Additional reporting: Mark Critchley
(Top Photo: Carl Reine/Getty Images)