The Arsenal Thread XXVI

Liverpool tickets easier to come by

The queue for new season ticket applications closed 6 years ago, at which point there were circa 70,000 in the queue.

I have friends who were put in the queue when they were born and are still thousands back, noting that we we are all mid-30’s.

Liverpool are still far and away more marketable worldwide than Arsenal, especially in Asia and Europe. As Bj said, Arsenal and Chelsea have really cornered the African market for English clubs.

Best to just ignore United as they still dwarf all of us.

As a minor test, essentially no matter where you are in the UK you find local people who are United and Liverpool fans but very rarely find non-London Arsenal fans. Same as when you go abroad, locals are rocking United and Liverpool kits but not really much else from the UK.

There are hardly two teams more comparible in terms of revenue than Arsenal/Liverpool. You're higher when in the CL and we're not, and vice versa. Similar number of fans, you can dice that through instigram/facebook/twitter. Albeit I will bet Liverpool tickets are somewhat easier to come by, the blue balls amongst Arsenal fans in London is very very high and there are loads of us.

Bearing in mind Liverpool have been very well run, and Arsenal very badly run (until recently I hope!) and the CL revenues and there is little difference. Liverpool fans have this absurd habit of trying to elevate themselves above other clubs. You are about as comparible with Arsenal as any club on earth.

There's no shame in being amongst good old Arsenal of the Marble Halls N5...

It's not the 00s or early 2010s anymore. Back then, Liverpool were still going on about "next year being our season" and Moores/Gillett&Hicks couldn't take the club forwards.
Liverpool would still make more in commercial revenue than Arsenal but the latter made more from the newly built Emirates with more capacity, more corporate boxes and higher London ticket prices.

However, fortunes have transformed over recent years. Arsenal (until this season) had been out of the CL for years and in turn that makes it harder to attract commercial revenues whereas Liverpool have been successful with plenty of trophies/3 CL finals etc.

Anfield has been revamped, from the start of this season, the capacity will be 61,000 and lots of corporate boxes were added. We've massively closed the gap in disparity in stadium revenues. Obviously broadcasting revenue is broadly reflective of who is more successful in the league/how far in CL (if participating etc). However the commercial revenues are the big difference. Arsenal have been making 100mil less a year for the last 4 reported financial years.

Arsenal are on par with Spurs these days in terms of financials. That's the new reality.

The kicker for me will come when clubs can negotiate their own tv deals. United and Liverpool will pretty much blow every English club out of the water by a significant amount.

Obviously not counting City and Newcastle, who’s countries will just pay £1bn a game

Liverpool tickets easier to come by

The queue for new season ticket applications closed 6 years ago, at which point there were circa 70,000 in the queue.

I have friends who were put in the queue when they were born and are still thousands back, noting that we we are all mid-30’s.

Liverpool are still far and away more marketable worldwide than Arsenal, especially in Asia and Europe. As Bj said, Arsenal and Chelsea have really cornered the African market for English clubs.

Best to just ignore United as they still dwarf all of us.

As a minor test, essentially no matter where you are in the UK you find local people who are United and Liverpool fans but very rarely find non-London Arsenal fans. Same as when you go abroad, locals are rocking United and Liverpool kits but not really much else from the UK.

You find plenty of Arsenal fans all over the South of England, it's just in the North that it's rare. But you are hardly less likely to find an Arsenal fan in Bath, Southampton or Birmingham as you are a Liverpool fan...

And London is London. London AND the home counties is even bigger and pretty much everyone in Hertfordshire is either an Arsenal or a Spurs fan. So Liverpool can share St Helens, Halifax and Grimsby with Utd as much as they want frankly.
Bottom line is that Arsenal and Liverpool could both fill 100,000 stadiums for quite a lot of games overall

Twitter/Facebook/Instigram all very very similar, some were higher, some youre higher.

So Arsenal and Liverpool are about as close as "brands" as you can find in football, Liverpool probably slightly ahead. But I was just responding to Zerf's absurd post that Liverpool were somehow far ahead. You're much much closer to Arsenal than you are to Utd.

You find plenty of Arsenal fans all over the South of England, it's just in the North that it's rare. But you are hardly less likely to find an Arsenal fan in Bath, Southampton or Birmingham as you are a Liverpool fan...

And London is London. London AND the home counties is even bigger and pretty much everyone in Hertfordshire is either an Arsenal or a Spurs fan. So Liverpool can share St Helens, Halifax and Grimsby with Utd as much as they want frankly.
Bottom line is that Arsenal and Liverpool could both fill 100,000 stadiums for quite a lot of games overall

Twitter/Facebook/Instigram all very very similar, some were higher, some youre higher.

So Arsenal and Liverpool are about as close as "brands" as you can find in football, Liverpool probably slightly ahead. But I was just responding to Zerf's absurd post that Liverpool were somehow far ahead. You're much much closer to Arsenal than you are to Utd.

It's not the 00s or early 2010s anymore. Back then, Liverpool were still going on about "next year being our season" and Moores/Gillett&Hicks couldn't take the club forwards.
Liverpool would still make more in commercial revenue than Arsenal but the latter made more from the newly built Emirates with more capacity, more corporate boxes and higher London ticket prices.

However, fortunes have transformed over recent years. Arsenal (until this season) had been out of the CL for years and in turn that makes it harder to attract commercial revenues whereas Liverpool have been successful with plenty of trophies/3 CL finals etc.

Anfield has been revamped, from the start of this season, the capacity will be 61,000 and lots of corporate boxes were added. We've massively closed the gap in disparity in stadium revenues. Obviously broadcasting revenue is broadly reflective of who is more successful in the league/how far in CL (if participating etc). However the commercial revenues are the big difference. Arsenal have been making 100mil less a year for the last 4 reported financial years.

Arsenal are on par with Spurs these days in terms of financials. That's the new reality.

So you are using as your benchmarks
1) Liverpool having won the title for the first time in 30+ years, the CL and annually in nail biting title races
2) Arsenal in 30 year low, finishing 8th with no Euro revenue at all.

I am not sure what you do for a living, but it is surely artistic rather than analytical...

Take the 20 year average revenues for Arsenal/Liverpool, that is a much much more appropriate measure. Looking forward, there will be a 30-50m gap.

**** waving about who has the better deloitte rankings when we have owners that are willing to invest and Liverpool don't is the real topic of discussion

This is the real conversation.

Meanwhile Chelsea won't give anyone over 100k and will pay 80m for a random guy.

Feels the exact opposite of the Saudi model. Spunk £50m a year on one players wages but refuse to pay the club £15m for him.

I used the last financial year of publically available information and then looked at the last 5 year average.

It's a no brainer to use the most recent financial data available.
It really isnt. If you spend any time looking at data, and I do it for a living and to a very high level, then you consider an average as your default. Why? Because the most recent is but one single data point and so influenced unduly by short term trends. In this case, Arseal being at a 30 year low point and Liverpool at a 30 year high point. As we saw last season, reversion to a mean is typical.
Last 5 years is partly being lazy (Deloitte Money League shows the data for the last 5 years) and partly because it provides a recent average.

Now I know it's been like 19 or 20 years since Arsenal won the league and were relevant but stop living in the past. The entire football landscape has changed in that period so other than extending to suit your agenda, why would you use a 20 year time span?
See above. I would use Liverpool's season after Roy Hodgson, would you? Nor should you use Arsenal's recently for basically the same reason. This is not complicated and I would say intuitive to a 4 year old. Otherwise I would blindly apply Turkey sales in January as my expected sales annually or scarves in July.

Unfortunately we won't have the data for the 2023-2024 data until like 2025/26 but I expect that Man Utd (also being in the CL) will still make significantly more money than Arsenal and also even though Liverpool are in the Europa League, they will still probably make more money or at least similar money to Arsenal (the CL is usually worth 50+mil to a club).

But instead of making sweeping statements in an artistic manner, why don't you use some actual figures and facts to analyse?

For the 2021/22 season, Arsenal reported revenues of €433mil and Liverpool reported €702mil.

You can subtract €100mil for the European difference (even though Arsenal have not played CL football for 5 seasons) to discount Liverpool's 3 CL final runs but even then Liverpool's revenues were 40% higher.

Arsenal at c.533 with CL at a minimum. Dont forget the sponsor additional revenue and sheer ability to attract big names when youre in it. The remaining gap is cyclical and captures the fact Liverpool at the very top of the cycle(literally greatest period in 40 years) and that Arsenal at the bottom.

But they're still exactly the same obviously

What drives a club's revenue? 1) Fanbase 2) Success 3) Management

2) & 3) are cycical. I wouldnt forget that Arsenal were run in a ludicrous, pathethic way on and off the pitch. Do you think a club doing Pepe for 70m would also be making great off the field deals? Do you think a club doing Salah at 30m would be doing better or worse deals? These things are cyclical as said. 1) drives the mean to which every single club, without exception, drifts towards. Liverpool couldnt put a dent in Utd's position, as they have more fans, even though you were much better ran and successful. But you could dwarf Arsenal, even though simialr fanbase and therefore (and you dont need an MBA to grasp this) revenue streams. Swap the recent history and the two flip. You know it, and I know that you know it.

Feels the exact opposite of the Saudi model. Spunk £50m a year on one players wages but refuse to pay the club £15m for him.

**** waving about who has the better deloitte rankings when we have owners that are willing to invest and Liverpool don't is the real topic of discussion

Pre-tax losses of £226mil in the last 3 years..

It's obviously being funded by Kroenke or through burning through previous cash resources or mortgaging your future to spend today. It's not sustaintable unless you start winning PL and CLs regularly.

**** waving about who has the better deloitte rankings when we have owners that are willing to invest and Liverpool don't is the real topic of discussion