Arsenal fans have a complex relationship with the Emirates Stadium, the ground built to give them a permanent seat among world football’s superpowers through a self-sustaining business model.
It has now been almost two decades since Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh conducted the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The event was meant to be Queen Elizabeth II’s gig, but she was unable to attend due to a back injury. Retrospectively, it was an appropriate start to life at the Emirates, where Arsenal have remained a Premier League kingpin but missed out on the game’s very biggest prizes.
Fast forward to 2025 and Arsenal want to expand the Emirates Stadium. Last summer, co-chair Josh Kroenke said the club had held preliminary conversations about potential upgrades to their 60,704-seater home.
An aerial view of Arsenal's Emirates Stadium at dusk
Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
Since then, the North Londoners have turned on the afterburners, enlisting architects to present them with potential designs with a reported target of boosting capacity to around the 80,000 mark.
In one sense, it’s a statement of intent from the Gunners who, despite a mixed season in 2024-25, are on the up under Mikel Arteta. Viewed another way, however, it’s a tacit admission that their grand plan for Highbury’s heir has failed.
The stadium was meant to deliver long-term profitability but instead, even after years of restraint in the transfer market as they grappled with loan repayments, the extra revenue it generates has been swallowed up by the costs of competing in football’s relentless financial arms race.
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
Since he bought the club outright in 2018, Stan Kroenke has taken on several hundred million pounds’ worth of debt, much of which was previously owed to third-party lenders and the Bank of England’s pandemic loan scheme.
Even in 2023-24 (the most recent published financial year) when Arsenal’s matchday income of £137m was the highest in English football and they returned to an expanded and more lucrative Champions League, they made a loss of nearly £18m.
It’s not the fault of the Kroenkes or the previous ownership regime that football finance has taken leave of its senses, of course. When the Emirates Stadium was officially commissioned in 2002, no one had foreseen the arrival of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea or the direct influence of petrostates and private equity in the Premier League, all of which have distorted football’s economy domestically and globally.
Diagram showing the nationalities of Premier League club owners for TBR Football
Premier League ownership diagram Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
The domestic game’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) and its UEFA counterpart meanwhile have acted more as a floor than a ceiling, unlike the cost control systems in the NFL or NBA, where Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE) owns the immensely profitable Los Angeles Rams and Denver Nuggets.
Throw in a bloc of uber-smart, uber-ambitious challenger clubs who make their resources stretch further than the elites like Arsenal – for whom there are diminishing returns the more they spend on players and wages – and you have a perfect storm.
No wonder then, that, they are looking for a financial advantage in one of the only areas besides the commercial department where they have an in-built advantage: the stadium.
Everton stadium architect would ‘love to talk’ to Arsenal about Emirates Stadium masterplan
Matchday income, once the ugly duckling of most Premier League clubs’ three primary revenue streams (matchday, commercial and media), is now back in vogue.
Arsenal aren’t the only ones looking at making major changes to their stadium. Manchester United, Newcastle United, Birmingham City, Leeds United and Aston Villa are all weighing up either major expansion projects or new home grounds altogether.
Manchester City hope to have finished raising capacity to around 62,000 by late 2026, while Tottenham, West Ham and Liverpool have all recently upped the number of fans they can accommodate too.
Updated chart showing the matchday incomes and stadium capacities of top English clubs
Matchday income and stadium capacities chart Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
But the Premier League’s freshest venue is the Hill Dickinson Stadium, née Bramley Moore Dock. Everton’s new stadium will stage its maiden competitive match for the senior men’s team on Saturday, 23 August.
Before that, David Moyes’ side will take on the other club in Dan Friedkin’s portfolio, AS Roma, in the first fixture played in front of a 52,888 capacity crowd on Saturday, 9 August.
It will be a profound moment for world-famous architect Dan Meis, the man who dreamt up the Toffees’ new home in earshot of the waves lapping the banks of the River Mersey.
Now, in exclusive conversation with TBR Football, Meis says he would “love to talk” to Arsenal as they mull their options for the Emirates Stadium.
“I’m always interested in these projects and it’s always important for owners to get different perspectives.”
Meis is now Senior Vice President and Director of Global Sports Design at AECOM, the multinational construction firm who handled the construction of the SoFi Stadium, the home of Kroenke’s LA Rams franchise.
Stan Kroenke attends Arsenal's pre-season match against Barcelona at the SoFi Stadium, home of his LA Rams NFL franchise
Photo by Trevor Ruszkowski/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Although that breath-taking arena predates Meis’ time at AECOM, the Colorado-born designer recalls: “I was in LA when SoFi was initially conceived, designing a competing scheme for another developer in different part of LA.
“What became clear was that as soon as Kroenke decided he was going to push forward to get a team in LA, he was going to go big. My impression has always been that he doesn’t do anything without being very thoughtful about it and does what is needed to get it done.
*“SoFi is interesting. It’s one of the most extreme NFL buildings and probably in comparison to stadiums of any kind too. He made a commitment to do something that was bold and spectacular in a lot of ways.*“
Meis’ experience on the West Coast brings us on to what is possible at Arsenal.
Stan Kroenke’s favoured model
At the two big stadiums in the KSE network outside of Arsenal, the SoFi Stadium and the Denver Nuggets’ Ball Arena, the Kroenkes have used the arenas themselves as touchpoints for huge property developments, incorporating both commercial and residential spaces.
This is practically de rigueur for football clubs pondering their own stadium redevelopments these days. See Birmingham City’s proposed ‘Sports Quarter’, for example. The venue brings the footfall and creates more revenue-generating opportunities, making what are often multi-billion-pound projects far more commercially viable.
“One of my earliest sports projects was the Staples Center, which is now Crypto.com Arena, where the Lakers play,” says Meis, explaining how this philosophy might be workable at Arsenal despite the Emirates Stadium’s tiny footprint relative to its Kroenke-owned cousins in the United States.
“When we first pitched it to the developer at the time, we had this idea that you can’t just build an arena in downtown LA because there wasn’t anything there. At night in LA, everybody went to the suburbs. So we built a giant model in our conference room that showed this idea: don’t just build a building, build a district – and that became L.A. Live. I think it really did become the go-to model. Almost every project we see now, no matter what the sport or where it is – in the US, Italy, the UK – has become more of a real estate play.
“The point about Arsenal being hemmed in – it doesn’t require acres of space. It requires the ability to have something else outside the front door. We’re seeing that a bit with Manchester City. What I see there is what I call a pocket entertainment district. It’s not huge; it’s compact and right up to the stadium, but it creates a kind of second venue.
“That’s what you can do on a tight site. You don’t have to build a lot of structure or mixed-use. It can be a tight focus but still feel accessible 365 days a year, not just on game day.”
Does an 80,000-seater stadium make financial sense for Arsenal?
Ostensibly, the bigger the stadium, the more pounds and decibels Arsenal can extract from their fanbase.
In reality, however, the truth about capacity is more nuanced. “As an architect, I know scarcity is valuable,” Meis explains.
“As soon as a team has available seats every game, it’s harder to sell season tickets or luxury boxes. People delay buying until the day because seats are always available.
A general pitchside view of Arsenal's Emirates Stadium
Photo by Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC via Getty Images
“Right-sizing capacity is really important. The last 10,000 seats are the most expensive to build – higher up, wider concourses, more toilets, more food and beverage infrastructure, wider stairways – all these things make expansion exponential in cost. Those seats are also furthest from the pitch, so they generate less revenue and aren’t as desirable.
There’s always pride and ambition involved, wanting to be bigger. We’ve seen that with Manchester United and the ‘Wembley of the North’. But what I try to explain is that major arenas like Crypto.com or Madison Square Garden rarely exceed 20,000 seats. Billy Joel sold out 100 nights at MSG but that doesn’t mean you build a 100,000-seater so everyone can come once.
“Ambition can get in the way of the most logical economic decisions. Increasing capacity makes sense if you’re constantly sold out, but you have to weigh that against constraints. With Emirates, are you raising the roof? Is there room to expand? It’s not easy.
“I always say: build one less seat than you can sell. But figuring out what that number is, that’s the trick.”
Atmosphere over aesthetics critical for Gunners’ stadium plans
The look of a new-build stadium is tough to get right. To escape the ‘soulless bowl’ cliché, some clubs have attempted to make their homes as visually striking as possible.
“This is something I feel strongly about,” says Meis, whose advice to Arsenal is not to prioritise aesthetics over atmosphere.
“There’s a notion that a stadium needs to be memorable, with something iconic like the Wembley Arch or a tower at Manchester United. But for me, the iconic thing is the experience of a true English football ground.
“Goodison, even in the seats behind columns, was an incredible place to watch football. That’s what I wanted to carry into Bramley-Moore: something that felt like it grew out of the docks, drew on history, felt like it belonged.
“Inside, it’s about feeling like you’re right on top of the pitch. It’s bigger than Goodison, but keeps that feel. I resist the idea that a stadium has to be a spectacular object.
“The one thing that I never quite understood about the Emirates, for example, the ends of the stadium are far from the pitch. I don’t know what it was in the geometry of the bowl that drove that.
“When I first toured the Emirates, it felt like an NFL stadium and didn’t reflect the neighbourhood or the club’s history. If I had been there from the beginning, I maybe would have argued for something that felt like a modern version of what it replaced, not something that could have been anywhere. That’s the conversation in English football now.
“You could do a significant renovation to make Emirates more visually distinctive. But I would ask: can we make it feel more like a true English football stadium? How do we capture that magic?”
Phased development vs total rebuild: Will Arsenal have to move away from the Emirates?
Often with a stadium redevelopment, a club vacating its spiritual home during the construction process is one of the costs of doing business.
However, Liverpool and Manchester City have opted for phased redevelopments without drastic cuts to capacity, allowing them to continue generating revenue through the turnstiles.
Could Arsenal do the same, according to Meis?
“It depends on ambition. Raising the roof might require reducing capacity for a season. Maybe they can close those seats and work around it, but I’d need to study it. That’s a big decision. In the NFL, they often have space to build next door. In the UK, you don’t. Could they play somewhere else for a season or two? That’s tough. But if the investment has a 30-year return, it might be worth it.
A general external view of the Emirates Stadium, with Arsenal badge prominently featured
Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images
“As someone who works across sports and entertainment, we often help clubs understand what other events they could host. Some require significant changes – retractable pitches, roofs and so on. Look at what Real Madrid did. But you have to model whether 10 more events per year justifies a £200m roof. Often, it doesn’t.
“For most concerts, there’s no big difference in weather across the UK to justify it. In the US, yes. In the UK, not so much.
KSE face finance and logistical challenges
In the UK, securing planning application and the necessary land to carry out a stadium revamp is one of the biggest obstacles. Indeed, this was the reason Arsenal left Highbury. More recently, they had a planning application for a new 25-storey tower block on the Emirates site rejected by Islington Council in 2014.
Will KSE have more luck when it comes to a much grander project to redevelop the stadium, especially one which will likely demand upgrades to the surrounding area’s infrastructure and transport links? And what’s more, what about the challenges in securing public money for the massive capital expenditure project?
“There are two problems,” observes Meis, one is the difficulty of the site itself. In the UK, you’re hemmed in by active, historic neighbourhoods. In the US, there’s more land. I think Arsenal might have an easier time now.
Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man City, Liverpool matchday income chart
Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Man City, Liverpool matchday income chart Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
“When you’re building for the first time in a new neighbourhood, there’s resistance. But the Emirates is already there. Any new development will have impacts, but if you’re thinking of it more as urban development rather than just a stadium, you can argue there are community benefits. New uses and amenities could help justify the changes.
*“There have been plenty of examples in the US, and I’m sure in the UK, where a billionaire has gotten a lot of benefit and support, and then the team doesn’t do any better, and it just feels like a handout. But it’s about communication and the culture of the club. It’s certainly reasonable for people to question it but I think there is a justification, at least in some cases, that there is a direct public benefit.*“
The prawn sandwich brigade: How will Arsenal configure their lucrative hospitality seats?
In Arsenal’s Diamond Club, the most exclusive area of the Emirates Stadium, a season ticket will set you back £30,000. Increasingly, owners are seeing outsized value in premium seats, which in some cases are just as lucrative as general admission despite being far less by volume.
“Moving premium-paying fans further from the pitch because they get club amenities, that grew out of the US in the 70s and 80s,” explains Meis, addressing how the Gunners are likely to configure the Emirates 2.0 to maximise revenue without alienating bedrock fans.
“But across sports, fans now want to be close to the action and still have the amenities. So that old model has flipped. People won’t stay far away just for a club house. They want both proximity and the sporting experience. That has changed the organisation of these buildings since the Emirates – not a very old building – was built.”
Billionaires prefer to spend other people’s money, not their own. Stadium projects at the scale which Arsenal are planning are invariably funded largely by debt.
Debt isn’t a dirty word in football finance, but Arsenal’s relative frugality compared to some of their peer group when they were paying off the bulk of the debt used to build their stadium might ring alarm bells among Gunners fans looking for retail therapy in the transfer market, especially given that the Emirates project is slated to cost upwards of £500m.
Speaking exclusively to TBR Football, University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire gives his analysis on the North Londoners’ debt situation and how they might structure another massive capital expenditure project.
“Presently, Arsenal have net debt of £275m,” says the Price of Football author, “and they have got a similar amount in net transfer debt. That’s manageable but sizable.
Graph showing Arsenal's total financial borrowings
Arsenal borrowings graph Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
“I think it would have to be a mixture of in-house – i.e., the bank of Stan Kroenke – and third-party.
“It’s almost certain that it will be a loan note which comes with interest. It could also be that it will be a series of loan notes issued by the club rather than one lender taking on all of the risk, not that there is a huge amount. Arsenal are a cash cow. They generate very impressive operational cash flows means a lender wouldn’t be unduly worried about financial distress.
“I’m 99 per cent certain it won’t be a capital interest repayment on a monthly basis because that doesn’t happen in the big corporate world. At the end of the term, you simply reschedule the repayment date. If the lender is happy with you because you’re making the regular repayments and you’re well within the EBITDA covenant, then why as a lender would you want to find someone else to give the money to?
“When it rolls over, you renegotiate the interest rate. But during the term period of the loan, it will be at a fixed rate.”