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PSRB
Good explanation of why it's worth it in The Telegraph:
Eighteen years ago, after the first full season at the Emirates Stadium had been completed, there was a sense of considerable triumph in the corridors of power at Arsenal. The sparkling new arena had been built on time and on budget, and the club were finally able to enjoy the financial rewards of their relocation from Highbury.
?The move has been a huge success,? wrote Peter Hill-Wood, Arsenal?s chairman, in the club?s 2007 financial report, and there could be no arguing with his assessment. Match-day revenues had more than doubled from the final season at Highbury, rising from ?44m to ?91m, and Arsenal?s financial future appeared to be extraordinarily bright.
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The move to the Emirates made match-day revenues the main source of Arsenal?s income in 2006-07. The club?s leaders planned for the stadium to be the financial foundation from which everything else flowed, providing the ?increased income, profitability, cash generation and financial strength? to take Arsenal to the top of the domestic and European game.
This was the future that Arsenal built for, but the gruelling reality of the club?s modern history is that it never came. On the pitch, the men?s team have won neither the Premier League nor Champions League since the move. And off it, football mutated at such a pace that those precious match-day revenues quickly declined in significance. It took just seven seasons for match-day income to be emphatically overtaken by the earnings from broadcast deals.
A general view outside of the Remember Who You Are stadium wrap prior to the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Brentford FC at Emirates Stadium on February 11, 2023 in London, England
Arsenal are considering redeveloping the Emirates Stadium Credit: Getty Images/Clive Mason
These days, matches at the Emirates provide only around 20 per cent of Arsenal?s total revenues. Broadcast revenues are twice as important. As everything else in football has grown over two decades ? broadcast deals, player wages, transfer fees, commercial income ? the relative financial power of the Emirates has waned.
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Consider this: Arsenal?s match-day revenues were ?91m in 2006-07. In 2023-24, they were ?132m ? an increase of 45 per cent. In that same time, broadcast revenues jumped from ?44m to ?262m ? an increase of 495 per cent. And commercial revenues went from ?30m to ?218m ? an increase of 627 per cent.
Arsenal effectively found themselves on the wrong side of history when they built the Emirates. They made the decision to build the stadium at the turn of the millennium, just as the finances of football were evolving. At the very top, the biggest change was the arrival of Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour at Chelsea and Manchester City. Not only did those two clubs outgun Arsenal in the transfer market, they signed many of their best players.
Why, then, are Arsenal now planning a major and costly expansion of their stadium, as revealed by Telegraph Sport on Tuesday? Well, it is largely because football?s financial landscape has changed once more. For different reasons, and at a different scale from before, match-day revenues have become fundamental again.
At the most basic level, every penny counts in the modern age of Premier League financial restrictions, when billionaire owners connected to nation-states have been reined in. Clubs across the division are obsessed with maximising every source of revenue, and spending on infrastructure is exempt from profit and sustainability calculations. In PSR terms, stadium expansions cost nothing and generate plenty.
Arsenal have seen the redevelopment of Anfield, the birth of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the plans to rebuild Old Trafford, and they know they must keep up. The Emirates is not an old stadium but it is no longer a new stadium, either. It has been improved in recent seasons but much more can be done. To take a favourite phrase from Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, there is more juice to be squeezed from this lemon.
It must be said that the Emirates does feel increasingly outdated. Not in terms of look, or style, but in terms of match-day feel. It is a lovely place to watch football ? comfortable, spacious seating, with excellent views all over ? but it is hardly the hostile footballing arena that many supporters crave.
Arsenal fans at the Emirates during their Premier League match against Manchester City
Efforts have been made to improve the atmosphere at the Emirates in recent seasons Credit: Getty Images/Alex Pantling
The stands are shallower and wider than other football grounds, for example, with little of the steepness that creates throbbing and intense conditions during matches. In some ways the lower seating at the Emirates can feel closer to a theatre than a football stadium, especially when compared with the high and steep stands at the newer Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Everton?s Hill Dickinson Stadium. More bodies in the ground, and steeper stands, would be welcomed by many match-going Arsenal fans.
Another crucial financial factor in all these calculations is that the growth in broadcast money has stopped. The boom is effectively over. Accounting for inflation, the Premier League now earns 31 per cent less than during the 2016-19 broadcast cycle. As detailed by Telegraph Sport earlier this season, the value of each match broadcast live has dropped from ?10.2m to ?6m since 2016.
In other words: when Arsenal had a state-of-the-art, world-leading stadium, it did not matter as much as they thought it would. Now they have a stadium which is no longer the best in class, match-day revenues are becoming vitally important again.
The inevitable fear among supporters will be that a costly renovation, and a potential temporary switch to Wembley, will weigh on the team. Indeed, most fans remain scarred by the years of austerity following the construction of the Emirates, when Arsenal were outspent and overpowered by their rivals. It took until 2013 for Arsenal to declare themselves ready to ?compete with any club in the world?, but by then they were lagging behind.
These are different times, though, and the footballing world is a very different place. Almost two decades on from the grand opening of the Emirates, Arsenal once again have compelling reasons to re-evaluate and reshape their north London home. The last time they did so, they found themselves battered by football?s changing winds. This time around, they will hope to have that breeze at their backs.
