North-east Premiership slots under threat

Today’s draw between Newcastle United and Sunderland increases the chances of both clubs being relegated and the north-east, one of the traditional homes of football, being left unrepresented in the Premier League (unless Middlesbrough are promoted).

Television for money for a Championship club next year is expected to be around £9m.   Relegated teams will also receive £32.5m in the first tranche of their parachute payment, making a total of £41.5m.

Today’s draw between Newcastle United and Sunderland increases the chances of both clubs being relegated and the north-east, one of the traditional homes of football, being left unrepresented in the Premier League (unless Middlesbrough are promoted).

Television for money for a Championship club next year is expected to be around £9m.   Relegated teams will also receive £32.5m in the first tranche of their parachute payment, making a total of £41.5m.

A tidy sum, but the bottom club in the Premier League will receive £96m plus £14m in merit money.  That is before one takes account of live TV money, gate receipts and enhanced commercial income.

Newcastle had a wage bill of £71m in 2013-14, Sunderland’s was £70m.   Those were the seventh and eighth highest respectively in the division.

Each club has large fan bases and strong identities, but economics accounts to some extent for under performance.  Jonathan Wilson, editor of the football magazine, The Blizzard, has pointed out that Arsenal make more in match day revenue in three games than Sunderland do in a season.

He notes that Sunderland was once a thriving industrial city, but ‘By the 1980s the shipyards had gone, the mines had gone, the jobs had gone … Today the northeast struggles.   It has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 8.6 per cent, and with an average income of £345 per week, is in the lowest income bracket.’