Queens Park Rangers and Burnley are the two sides best equipped to spring back into the Premier League should they get relegated to the second tier of English football, according to experts. With just five games left in the Premier League season, there are a handful of clubs grappling to stay in the top division. Hull, QPR, Burnley, Sunderland, Leicester, Aston Villa and Norwich are among those clubs likely to be relegated to the Championship, which will promote a massive drop in income for those affected. A drop in division will lead to TV revenues falling off a cliff, a decline in the value of shirt sponsorship and stadium advertising billboards, along with the specter of a fall in gate receipts.
THE FINE PRINT: Most sponsors have relegation clauses written in to deals with clubs, which means they pay less should they drop out of the Premier League. For example, a shirt sponsorship deal for a struggling Premier League club is worth between £1M ($1.5M) and £3M ($4.5M) a year, compared to £300,000 ($457,000) a year in the Championship. A drop in division will also scare off global brands from wanting their logos on shirts, as they lose the Premier League's massive global audience. Sports Revolution Commercial Dir Andy Clilverd said, “If you have a global brand on your shirt, then the Championship is of no interest whatsoever really as it is pretty much a domestic league.”
BROADCAST BLUES: The biggest fall for a club is in int'l and domestic TV revenue. The bottom club in the Premier League receives around £60M ($91M) a season from domestic and int'l TV rights, which falls to around £3M a year when a club drops down into the Championship. Though this is partially offset by parachute payments distributed by the Premier League to alleviate the financial strain of relegation of £60M over four years, clubs will invariably be forced to sell off their top players should they drop down a division. Despite the financial fall, recent years have seen 17 out of 85 relegated clubs automatically bounce back into the Premier League, helped by hanging on to key players and carefully managing their finances.
TOP CONTENDERS: This season, experts believe that QPR and Burnley are the two best placed to come back up to the Premier League should they be relegated. Burnley, which was promoted to the Premier League last year, is effectively managed financially like a Championship side. Burnley has the lowest annual wage bill in the Premier League of £21M ($32M), which is broadly in line with the club’s turnover. Compare this to another struggler Leicester, which has an annual wage bill of £36.3M ($55M) that is significantly bigger than its £31.2M ($47M) turnover. Phil Carling, managing director of Octagon’s football division, believes that as long as Burnley can keep hold of key players, the club will be well placed to come back up to the Premier League. He said, “Burnley haven’t bankrupted themselves and they are more or less run on a Championship economy.” QPR, which has yo-yoed between the Premier League and Championship, is also well placed to see a return to the Premier League, experts believe. Clilverd points to a number of factors in QPR’s favor, including its experience in getting out of the Championship, the likelihood that it will not see a big dropoff in fans and that it could keep hold of its best players. He said, “It’s easier to keep a professional footballer in a club that is based in London rather than one based in Hull.”
John Reynolds is a writer in London.
