Why Smart Brands Are Betting Big On Womenâs Sports
Why Brands Are Betting Big on Women's Sports Growth
Tottenham Hotspur is currently in 17th place in the Premier League, just one point above the relegation zone. Despite being one of the richest clubs globally, they face a potential disaster with only three games left in the season.
Tottenham Hotspur is staring down the abyss.
With three games remaining, Spurs are in 17th place in the Premier League, just one point clear of West Ham and the relegation zone. A 2â1 win over Aston Villa on Sunday pushed the void slightly further awayâbut Spurs, one of the richest and most famous sports teams in the world, is still on the brink of getting sent to the minor leagues.
Itâs a spectacular fall from grace. Tottenham is one of Englandâs âBig Sixâ clubs (a term that has fallen out of favor, ironically, because Spurs have been so bad in recent years).
The club generates the ninth-most revenue in world soccer at $766 million (ÂŁ565 million). It was playing in the Champions League in March after winning the Europa League last year. Its stadium cost $1.2 billion to build, regularly hosts NFL games, and is generally thought of as one of the best in the world.
The Washington Commanders are playing at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next fall. By then, the venue, which usually hosts the likes of Arsenal and Manchester United, could be hosting Championship teams like Lincoln, Stoke, and Blackburn.
âSpurs being relegated would be unprecedented,â Kieran Maguire, associate professor in football finance at the University of Liverpool, tells Front Office Sports. âWeâve never seen anything like it at this scaleââa club that was supposed to compete in the European Super League. From a footballing perspective, this is as big as it gets.â
Tottenham Hotspur is in 17th place in the Premier League.
Tottenham is just one point clear of the relegation zone.
Tottenham generates the ninth-most revenue in world soccer at $766 million.
The stadium cost $1.2 billion to build.
Why Brands Are Betting Big on Women's Sports Growth
Tatsuro Taira questions Joshua Van's legitimacy as flyweight champion ahead of UFC 328.
Alex Eala advances in Italian Open after a tough match against Frech
Ciryl Gane calls out Tom Aspinall for exaggerating eye poke after UFC 321
UNC is pursuing Florida center Micah Handlogten to boost their frontcourt depth.
Rory McIlroy's second Masters win highlights his new confidence
See every story in Sports â including breaking news and analysis.
The financial losses, too, would be unprecedentedââan estimated $548 million (ÂŁ405 million) hole overnight, and more after that.
Maguire estimates Spursâ total revenue across media, match day, and partnerships would be slashed to $473 million (ÂŁ348 million). Prize money would also plummet. Despite their struggles on the pitch, Spurs earned an estimated $100 million (ÂŁ74 million) by reaching the round of 16 in the Champions League. Even finishing 18th place in the Premier Leagueâthe first of the three relegation spotsâwould be worth around $163 million (ÂŁ120 million). In contrast, most Championship clubs are typically awarded only $14.9 million (ÂŁ11 million) per season.
Spursâ single greatest loss, however, would be broadcastingââmissing out on the Premier Leagueâs $16.3 billion global rights. NBC alone pays $2.7 billion for its U.S. coverage through 2028. In comparison, the English Football League (EFL), which houses the Championship, sold its entire international TV rights for $188 million (ÂŁ148 million) in 2024. âThe Premier League generates over half of its broadcast revenue from overseas,â says Maguire. âIn the EFL, itâs around 10% total, meaning the U.S. is a minor market, even with greater exposure now thanks to Wrexham.â
Relegated teams receive parachute payments from the Premier League, a sum directly tied to the competitionâs broadcast rights, to help soften the blow of relegation. This is expected to be $61 million (ÂŁ45 million) for the trio demoted to the Championship this season. That would barely make a dent in Spursâ $1.2 billion (ÂŁ875.2 million) debt, on which it owes $40.7 million (ÂŁ30 million) in annual interest payments alone. âThereâs a cliff edge between the Premier League and the next tier down,â says Maguire.
Spurs could experience up to a ten-fold drop in its commercial deals, estimates Michael Jackson, group CEO of Elite Sports Marketing, a sponsorship agency that works with several Premier League and Championship teams.
Depending on relegation clausesâwhich allow sponsors to bail if a team is relegatedâthis could include everything from its kit supply contract with Nike, worth $116 million (ÂŁ86 million) last season, to its shirt sleeve sponsor (cryptocurrency exchange Kraken), to its banking partner (HSBC), to even its menâs hair treatment partner (Elithair). The club is reported to have already lost one contract worth millions of dollars.
Its annual $54.4 million (ÂŁ40 million) deal with Hong Kong life insurance company AIA is the biggest question. Itâs the 10th-largest front-of-jersey sponsorship in all of soccer this season. It dwarfs the size of those in the Championshipââwhich average only around $1.37 million (ÂŁ1 million) a year, Jackson says.
He believes itâs unlikely that Spursâ original deal with AIA, signed in 2019, in the aftermath of its Champions League final defeat, would have a relegation clause. âThese are often contained in the contracts of the Premier Leagueâs bottom eight teams,â he says. âTo go from a Champions League final, at a time when Spurs had star players like Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, to the prospect of relegation, would have been unfathomableââit wouldnât have even been considered.â
Still, itâs unlikely Spurs would insist upon AIA paying another $54.4 million if itâs in the Championship, Jackson says, especially given that the brand is set to become its training kit partner when the current front-of-jersey deal expires in 2027. Instead, the gulf in value between the Premier League and the Championship would mean Spursâ current partnerships likely would be renegotiated. Future deals would also be impacted if the club is relegatedââa permanent stain on its Premier League record. âYou go down, you start back on lower money,â says Jackson. (AIA and Nike did not respond to an FOS request for comment; Kraken declined to comment.)
Match-day income, which totaled $171 million (ÂŁ126.5 million) last seasonâthe seventh highest in Europeâwould also take a significant hit. Ticket prices for Championship games pale in comparison to Premier League games across the board, but Tottenhamâs single-game tickets command upward of $136 (ÂŁ100) for the most in-demand matches, among the most expensive in England. The club has already said it will freeze season-ticket prices for next year, but if it wants to routinely sell out its 62,850-seat stadium, it will likely have to cut the prices of its single-game tickets.
Premium seating and corporate packages would also be in far less demand, a key reason why Maguire estimates match-day income would fall by nearly 40% in the Championship to $108 million (ÂŁ79 million). âItâs doubtful Tottenham would be able to sell all its hospitality boxes for a Tuesday night home game against Preston North End,â says Maguire.
These compounding losses would arrive just months after Spurs announced record pretax losses of $160 million (ÂŁ120.6 million) for the 2024â25 season. And that included its highest-ever revenues, boosted by winning the Europa League. Its cash reserves are also under strainââfrom $264 million (ÂŁ200 million) in 2023 to just $26.9 million (ÂŁ20.4 million) last year, driven by the third-highest non-wage operating costs of all European teams, $354 million (ÂŁ260 million), according to Maguire.
Relegation would therefore mean job losses, says Maguire. He cites Aston Villaâs case in 2016, the then-biggest Premier League club to be demoted to the Championship, which cut around 400 roles. âYou donât need as big a communications or marketing department in the Championship; thereâs less demand,â he adds. â[Soccer players] will always find somewhere to playâârelegation hits the rank and file harder.â
Spursâ $348 million (ÂŁ256 million) wage bill, the Premier Leagueâs seventh highest and approximately six times that of leading Championship teams, would also need to shrink. Remarkably, most of its playersâ contracts reportedly contain around 50% wage cuts should the club be relegated. âIâve seen contracts for players of other Big Six clubs and never seen that before,â says Maguire.
But even if player salaries are halved, many player sales would follow, and not just to offset huge losses. âMost players will want to leave,â says Jackson. âMany will still be in demand from rival clubs and few would be willing to stay on reduced wages, let alone play in the second tier.â
An expected exodus would mean Tottenham would have to spend big, even in the Championship. It means it could struggle to balance the books and reduce costs in line with depleting revenues, deteriorating its operating position even further. âSpurs will need to spend to replace all its players leaving,â adds Jackson. âIt would require a complete rebuild, even amid financial constraints.â
A Tottenham relegation would be so seismic that the effects would go beyond the club.
Stefano Endrizzi, founding partner of U.S. investment banking firm MergersCorp M&A International, which handles the sale of soccer clubs, says Spursâ demise will likely affect soccer valuations longer-term. âIf a club the size of Tottenham can be relegated, it can indirectly affect the value of those that survive,â he says.
Endrizzi says Premier League clubs could experience a three- to four-fold decrease in valuation following relegation. It underscores the relative volatility of European soccer compared to American sports, where major league franchisesââimmune from relegationââhave price tags that stretch into the billions.
No club the size of Spurs has ever been relegated from the top flight. Not Manchester United from the old First Division in 1974. Nor Villa in 2016. Not even Juventus from Serie A in 2006, following the Calciopoli scandal.
Relegation would be catastrophic for Spurs. But a sustained period outside the Premier League would make it worse. After all, thereâs no guarantee it would return to the top flight for the 2027â28 season. Demoted teams face a fight to get back up. Ironically, perennial Premier League strugglers with more recent Championship experienceâââyo-yoâ clubs, such as Burnleyââare often more equipped to immediately bounce back than those with the resources of Tottenham, which was last relegated in 1977.
The fear is what happened to Leeds United. In the years before Leeds went down, it was a Premier League giant. After consistent top-five finishes and a Champions League semifinal, it plummeted, finishing 15th, then 19th in 2004. It took 16 years to return to the top flightââincluding three torturous seasons in Englandâs third tier. Even today, itâs not fully out of the relegation fight.
But Tottenham is a much better-managed club, at least financially. The largest bulk of its billion-dollar debt isnât repayable until the 2040s (âso it will at least have a decade to return to the Premier League,â quips Maguire). And even with events on the pitch, its stadium should still continue to host elite events off itââa revenue stream of $44 million (ÂŁ32.5 million) last season, more than any Championship clubâs match-day revenue.
âGiven itâs still a massive club, Spurs can take the hit for a year,â says Jackson. âAny longer, and it becomes a major issue: How do you sustain a club of that magnitude in the Championship?â
If Tottenham does go down, it will be one of soccerâs biggest stories. âIf it happens, itâs going to be every teamâs cup final next season,â says Maguire. âEveryone will want Spursâ scalp.â
Tottenham Hotspur declined to answer questions for this story.
The post Tottenham Hotspur Is Facing a Billion-Dollar Disaster appeared first on Front Office Sports.