Newcastle United total revenues for 2017/18 season – We can now confidently estimate
We now know how well Newcastle United have done on the pitch in 2017/18.
A tenth place finish and 44 points delivered, thanks to that win over Chelsea topping things off.
What about when it comes to the money side of things?
Well the largest part of the Newcastle United revenue comes from TV and broadcasting and now the final matches have been played, the forecasted Premier League TV money club by club share out for this season can be seen below, in the table compiled by the excellent Sporting Intelligence who report on sport’s relationship with money:
(Sporting Intelligence added the following notes to their table – Precise amounts all TBC +/- the odd million. The biggest winners of the final day: West Ham, who bagged an extra £4m for beating Everton and climbing two places. There is an error in this updated table; Stoke’s win of course takes them above WBA. So they will be relegated with £2m more than stated and WBA with £2m less. Apols and sorry, Baggies.)
So Newcastle United are set to bank roughly £126m for 2017/18 from TV and broadcasting.
So what about the overall total?
Well, we do have the figures from the Premier League season of 2015/16.
Rounding figures up, this is what Newcastle banked two seasons ago:
£73m TV and Broadcasting
£25m Gate and Matchday
£28m Commercial and other income
Total turnover of £126m
So moving forward to 2017/18, what can we expect?
Well we know TV is set to hit £126m, which is exactly what Newcastle United banked in total two seasons ago.
In 2015/16, Matchday (£25m) and Commercial (£28m) added another £53m, and I think at the very least those figures should have been matched.
In fact, they should surely have gone up.
Crowds have increased from 49,754 average in 2015/16 to 51,992 in 2017/18 and tickets prices have gone up.
The FUN88 shirt sponsor deal was claimed to be NUFC’s highest ever, whilst with MRF the club gets extra money from sleeve sponsorship.
With the feel good factor provided by Rafa and the players, especially compared to that McClaren relegation season, we should surely be looking at more money coming in from every direction.
Whether that is shirt/merchandise sales, even programmes and matchday spend on food and drinks etc etc.
The bottom line is the 2017/18 turnover must surely be at least that 2015/16 figure (£126m) plus the extra £53m from TV this season, though as I have explained above, both Matchday and Commercial must surely have gone up as well.
As for costs?
This is where we are in the dark but once again we can use 2015/16 as a good guide.
I simply can’t see how wages can be higher this 2017/18 season compared to 2015/16.
Pretty much the whole squad on the wage bill back in 2015/16 had been bought as Premier League players and there was a massive clearout after relegation. The likes of Coloccini, Steven Taylor, Obertan, Marveaux, Townsend, Wijnaldum, Sissoko, Janmaat, Doumbia, Cisse, Cabella all leaving. Then later you also have seen Krul, Tiote, Thauvin, Siem de Jong etc all exit as well.
We then saw replacing them, a whole load of players recruited for the Championship promotion push and then the largely bargain shopping last summer, a combination which makes up the vast bulk of this squad that has finished 10th.
With wages being by far the largest part of operating costs, it is very difficult to see the 2017/18 operating costs being higher than the £96.5m figure of 2015/16, indeed it should be lower.
So with likely income in 2017/18 being at least £179m and operating costs no higher than £96.5m, that leaves us with around £82.5m. With the only big unknown being what kind of figure player transfers/amortisation will be.
In 2015/16 that transfers/amortisation figure was £28.3m in the books, even if it was a similar figure (which I very much doubt – surely lower than that 2015/16 figure), you are still looking at a profit of at least £55m or so, probably higher, maybe significantly higher…
For whatever reason, Newcastle United still haven’t even released the accounts for the Championship season of 2016/17! The deadline was almost seven weeks ago and the club will be fined for filing them late but the level of fine is a pittance for Mike Ashley. It will be interesting though when the 2016/17 accounts are filed at Companies House, as the club may give us some indication as to what has happened in this last year.
For example when the 2015/16 NUFC accounts came out, they chose to add a special note saying that Rafa Benitez had made a profit of £40m in the summer 2016 transfer window but that the majority of that £90m for players sold, would only reach the club’s bank account in the seasons following 2016/17.
Mike Ashley got away with it this season when limiting Rafa’s transfer spend but no excuses this time not to give the manager serious backing from profits generated, plus extra cash from the likely sale of Aleksandar Mitrovic and others.
It would be very interesting to know what is happening in these talks between the club and Rafa’s people, George Caulkin of The Times reported that Rafa Benitez’ advisors had ‘laughed off’ reports that Ashley was prepared to give him an £80m transfer budget.
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