Whenever Arsenal have attracted takeover interest, Stan Kroenke has broken his ‘Silent Stan’ persona to shut it down swiftly and unambiguously.
Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, the holding company in which Stan Kroenke houses his £12bn sports empire, took 100 per cent control of Arsenal in 2018.
In the project lifecycle of owning a global brand like the Gunners, that’s barely a mid-point. Increasingly, the big brains in football finance are thinking in 20, 25 or 30-year timelines.
As things stand, no one in football club ownership is making any real money. Kroenke sunk about £800m into acquiring all of Arsenal’s shares and has since loaned the club £324m with no specified repayment date. So, the 77-year-old businessman is over £1bn down on his investment so far. Where is the return?
Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke looks at a pre-season tour event in the United States
Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Well, the consensus is that his is a capital appreciation project. In layman’s terms: buy low, sell high. That is the only way that anyone is currently generating a profit in football club ownership in lieu of consistent profitability.
When they release their accounts for the season next May, Arsenal will probably post a profit for 2024-25, but it will be their first since 2017-18, before Kroenke Sports & Entertainment bought the club. In the last six financial years, their cumulative losses have reached almost £330m.
Arsenal pre-tax profit and loss figures graph
Arsenal profit and loss account Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
One thing to note is that the figures in the profit-and-loss account don’t represent the flow of real money in and out of the business, as non-cash expenses like depreciation and amortisation are included.
But even allowing for that discrepancy, the fact Arsenal have relied on third-party loans – later converted by Kroenke into interest-free ‘soft loans’ – illustrates the club’s tendency to run at a cash loss year after year.
The last financial year’s statement showed £230m worth of cash inflow from operations and player sales, but that was eliminated by investment in the transfer market, infrastructure and interest expenses.
And therein lies the problem facing, not just Kroenke, but near enough every club owner on the planet. Yes, revenues are booming but so too are costs. Extra income is wiped out by player wages, transfers and agents’ fees. In 2015, Arsenal paid players and staff £192m. In 2024-25, it will probably be double that.
UEFA’s Financial Fair Play, their Financial Sustainability Regulations, nor the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules have had the desired effect. They have acted more as a floor than a ceiling, as was their original intention.
Chart showing Arsenal's revenue vs their squad cost with the introduction of PSR and FFP
Arsenal squad cost vs revenue vs PSR Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
Contrary to popular belief, nearly every club in the Premier League recognises the need for some form of cost control. It’s in the owners’ interests to halt the extraordinary wage and transfer inflation we have witnessed in the last two decades of which Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea was the catalyst.
But at the moment, clubs with competing interests and disparate ownership models cannot agree on how to fix the big issues in the governance of the game. As a result, the likes of Arsenal are focusing on supercharging revenue in the hope of outpacing costs.
But there are issues here too.
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Arsenal’s revenue could soar with Spotify-style Premier League streaming service
Commercial and matchday income are soaring at the Emirates, but media income is still the big-ticket item in their accounts. Last year, it accounted for £262m of their turnover compared to commercial (£222m) and matchday (£113m).
The total value of the Premier League’s media deals is £12bn over its current four-year cycle. But there are signs that its growth is plateauing domestically. The new UK broadcast deal is worth more than its predecessor in total terms but, on a per-match basis, is down on the previous agreement. And the Premier League only have so many matches they can sell to Sky Sports and TNT, with diminishing returns.
Arsenal’s media income has leaped up in recent seasons, though that is primarily due to improved performance on the pitch and the return to the Champions League.
Chart showing Arsenal media revenue since 2013, with TBR Football logo
Chart showing Arsenal media revenue since 2013 Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
What’s more, the Premier League is losing increasing market share to illegal streaming. Some research suggests Arsenal and their peers are losing as much as £1m per match due to the proliferation of piracy.
In turn, critics of the Premier League’s rights set up have criticised the rising costs and pluralisation of subscription services. To watch domestic and European games, Arsenal fans face subscriptions upwards of £50 per month, a significant chunk of the average household’s disposable income in a time of inflation and slow wage growth.
The solution? For many, it’s a cheaper over-the-top (OTT) system, one in which the Premier League bypasses traditional broadcasters and sells its rights to a streaming service. This is sometimes called the ‘Premflix’ model.
TBR Football is aware of several clubs who are actively pushing for this model. Chelsea’s Todd Boehly is one of a handful to have publicly suggested it is the right strategy.
One step on from that would be a direct-to-consumer system, one which bypasses the middleman altogether and sees the Premier League launch its own in-house streaming service.
In a new report, the world-renowned consultancy firm Deloitte has suggested that the Premier League faces limited growth unless it considers this
Whilst modest increases in overall revenue are expected to continue, this growth will remain relatively limited unless bold and innovative changes are now considered and then pursued by both the League and its constituent clubs. Any transition towards more of a D2C (direct to consumer) offering would be an example of this, allowing the league to benefit from the unrivalled level of fan interest it holds globally. For such pivots to catalyse material transformation, clubs would though need to collaborate with and trust each other and the League, around key topics such as data sharing, to a much greater extent than is currently the case. The inherent reluctance to think about the best answer for the collective may well be limiting the overall progress of the Premier League.
Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance 2025
Sky Sports and TNT Sports showed an approximate 10 per cent drop-off in viewing figures last season compared to 2023-24, which they primarily chalked up to a lack of late-season jeopardy in the title race or relegation battle.
“There’s no doubt that the jeopardy issue has impacted viewing figures,” says University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to TBR Football.
“There’s also financial challenges for many families, so people are making big decisions with regards to their discretionary spending. Paying top dollar for streaming and TV sites isn’t top of their list.
*“The piracy issue is a difficult one to win – it’s hard to persuade people using these devices to stop because they offer a more comprehensive package at a fraction of the price. Trying to work around this is going to be difficult for the likes of Arsenal.*“
For Maguire’s money, the solution could be a move to a Spotify-style service. The streaming giant’s co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek is a big Arsenal and made a £1.8bn takeover bid for the club in 2021. Kroenke rejected the offer, which had public support from the likes of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira.
“We have seen a solution in the world of music in the form of Spotify and other streaming experiences. If you talk to artists, they will say they’re glad their work isn’t being pirated but the pay they get is miniscule and they have very little leverage over the streaming sites themselves,” says the Price of Football podcast host.
*“The challenge for the Premier League is to get people to pay the current prices because individual fans know the money is going to billionaire owners and multi-millionaire players. There’s not a lot of sympathy there and a view that, if the broadcast prices were lower, people would take up the legitimate alternative.*“
Arsenal-backed Club World Cup could demonstrate viability of ‘Premflix’
While they aren’t competing in the inaugural edition of the expanded 32-team edition of the Club World Cup in the United States, Arsenal fully support the competition in principle.
Indeed, there is a push from the likes of the Gunners, Liverpool and Manchester United to increase the tournament to 48 teams and lift the cap of two clubs per UEFA nation, giving them a better chance to qualify and take a share of its £750m prize money pot.
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But even though they aren’t participating in the event in their homeland, the Kroenkes will be watching the Club World Cup with interest due to the left-field approach it is taking with its broadcast rights.
After failing to secure a £3bn TV deal, FIFA accepted a £750m streaming offer from London-headquartered streaming service DAZN. Incidentally, that £750m is effectively being underwritten by Newcastle United’s owners, the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
DAZN are making the competition free-to-air and hope to use it as an on-ramp to attract more subscribers ahead of a potential future bid for the Premier League rights.
There are interactive elements to their coverage, while their coverage is incorporating body cameras for referees and other innovations.
Arsenal badge on the side of the Emirates stadium
Photo by Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images
Elsewhere, Arsenal and the Premier League at large will also be looking at how Ligue 1 fares with its own direct-to-consumer streaming service. France’s top flight has been forced in this direction following the early termination of their domestic broadcast deal with DAZN.
If Ligue 1’s approach is a success, expect to see the likes of Arsenal accelerate their push for a Premier League equivalent. As it happens, this is the approach that Arsenal lobbied for when they co-founded the European Super League in April 2021.
The mechanics of that plot were not fully thought through, however, and if a revolution in the way we consume the Premier League product is imminent, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment will need to stress-test their solution far more comprehensively.
Whatever happens, it will shape the future of how fans interact with Arsenal – and probably the fate of the Kroenke era at the Emirates too.