Arsenal have made an early play for the Premier League prize money crown as the only side to have all of their possible games so far picked for live TV.
Premier League clubs received a total of £2.83billion last season, which was comprised of six payments through the division’s ‘central revenue system’, something the Premier League says ‘ensures the most equitable distribution of funds of any major European league’.
Liverpool were paid £174.9m as champions – short of Manchester City’s record £176.2m in 2022/23 – while Newcastle received just over £160m to chuck into their PSR black hole.
Southampton were handed £109.2m for their efforts in finishing a distant bottom. It pays to be in the Premier League.
Some of those payments are fixed. All 20 clubs automatically receive around £96.9m through an equal share distributed based on both the domestic (£29.8m in 2024/25) and international (£59.2m in 2024/25) broadcast deals – those TV rights are lucrative for a reason – as well as £7.9m each from central commercial revenue streams.
The rest is variable, based on where clubs finish and how often their games are selected for broadcast.
How much is each Premier League place worth?
The Premier League merit payments are distributed on a sliding scale from 1st to 20th, made up of combined earnings from domestic and international broadcast deals.
For the 2024/25 season, the difference in prize money was around £2.7m per position. Southampton were given as much for finishing bottom, all the way up to champions Liverpool receiving £53.1m. It basically helped pay for 97.4% of Giorgi Mamardashvili and Jeremie Frimpong.
That can be expected to fluctuate with inflation and other factors – it was around £2.8m per position in 2023/24 – but it offers a rough guide as to what clubs should expect to earn this season.
READ MORE: 2024/25 Premier League prize money table revealed
What Premier League clubs will earn based on their position this season
The following is a breakdown of how much prize money each place in the Premier League table is worth. It is based on the 2024/25 season so could vary.
1st – £53.1m
2nd – £50.4m
3rd – £47.7m
4th – £45m
5th – £42.4m
6th – £39.8m
7th – £37.1m
8th – £34.5m
9th – £31.9m
10th – £29.1m
11th – £26.5m
12th – £23.8m
13th – £21.2m
14th – £18.6m
15th – £15.9m
16th – £13.3m
17th – £10.7m
18th – £7.9m
19th – £5.2m
20th – £2.7m
What are facility fees?
The only other part of the prize money which is not fixed and shared equally are the facility fees, which are based on how many times each club has been selected for television.
In 2024/25, Liverpool had 30 games televised in the UK, for which they received £24.9m in facility fees. Arsenal had 29 matches and were paid £24.2m, while Manchester United (28 games for £23.4m), Aston Villa (27 games for £22.6m) and Chelsea (26 games for £21.8m) were televised frequently and rewarded handsomely.
Ipswich were shown on the fewest occasions and received £8.9m in facility fees for their 10 live televised UK fixtures.
This can lead to discrepancies in terms of those variable payments. Manchester United’s prize money after finishing 15th last season was £136.2m, more than the four clubs immediately above them – West Ham (£130.9m in 14th), Everton (£131.8m in 13th), Crystal Palace (£136.1m in 12th) and Fulham (£135.5m in 11th) – as Ruben Amorim’s side were picked for far more live TV games.
Spurs were another massive outlier, earning more in 17th (£127.8m) than Wolves did in 16th (£123.1m) in part because they had nine more games picked for live UK broadcast.
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What Premier League clubs will earn based on their TV selection this season
One big change in Premier League prize money going forward is that the 2025/26 season represents the start of a new four-year TV deal cycle.
A new record £6.7bn domestic rights deal will see the number of live games rocket up to 267 of a possible 380, with every Premier League game outside the protected Saturday 3pm kick-offs to be broadcast live.
Sky Sports alone will air 215 of those after buying four of the five packages on offer, and are scheduled to show at least four Premier League matches per gameweek, as well as all 10 fixtures on the final day.
Their packages include all Saturday 5.30pm, Sunday 2pm and Sunday 4.30pm kick-offs, plus Monday and Friday evening games and three midweek rounds.
TNT Sports have the same number of games as last season at 52, including all Saturday 12.30pm kick-offs and two midweek match rounds. The BBC again secured the rights to a weekly highlights package.
Overseas TV rights are worth more than £2bn per year to the Premier League with new deals signed with broadcasters in Japan and Mexico to go alongside lucrative packages in America, Scandinavia, Thailand, China, India and elsewhere.
But the facility fee payments are tied to how many times a team is picked for broadcast by Sky and TNT, with both broadcasters having made their picks up to the end of September. One game generally translates to roughly £0.83m but does fluctuate.
Arsenal are the only team who have had every possible game so far selected for broadcast:
1st) Arsenal (6 games televised live in the UK) – worth around £4.98m in 2024/25
=2nd) Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest (5 games) – worth around £4.15m
=7th) Brentford, Everton, Newcastle and West Ham (4 games) – worth around £3.32m
=11th) Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Leeds and Spurs (3 games) – worth around £2.49m
=16th) Brighton, Sunderland and Wolves (2 games) – worth around £1.66m
=19th) Bournemouth and Burnley (1 game) – worth around £0.83m
When are live Premier League TV picks announced?
The Premier League generally tries to announce the rescheduling of games for live broadcast six weeks in advance but complications with domestic and European cup competitions can sometimes cause a delay.
These are their approximate dates for when they aim to announce live TV games:
Matches in October – by August 20
Matches in November – by September 17
Matches in December and January – by October 15
Matches in February – by December 17
Matches in March – by January 21
Matches in April – by March 4
Games in May are particularly susceptible to being changed at shorter notice as there is a need to see what gaps appear in clubs’ schedules, and frankly so broadcasters can manufacture more drama in races for the title, European qualification or survival.