Exclusive:Sunderland's potential £198m windfall under Kyril Louis-Dreyfus explained by finance expert
Sunderland could stand to gain close to £200million from just one season in the Premier League
Sunderland could stand to gain a whopping £198million from just one season in the Premier League if they are promoted under Régis Le Bris.
That’s the view of football academic and finance expert Kieran Maguire, who has broken down how much promotion could be worth to Sunderland and majority owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus at the end of the 2024-25 season.
Sunderland look nailed on to secure a play-off spot at least in this season’s Championship, and are just about still in the mix for the automatic promotion spaces, though they now look like a long shot after the recent losses to Leeds United and Hull City. Maguire, however, has revealed that just one season in the top-flight could bank the club a significant amount of money in new revenue.
“If we take a look at Sunderland's broadcast revenue, if we start off there, they're probably getting around about £8.5million to £9million from the EFL and the solidarity payments from the Premier League,” Maguire told The Echo. Sheffield United finished bottom of the Premier League last season and they got £109million. That's likely to have gone up by next season if Sunderland are promoted.
“So I think it will probably be in the region of £111million or £112million. So that's good news for the club and on top of that, you've got solidarity payments. Worst case scenario, if Sunderland go straight down, then it's probably a further £80million.
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“That's £190million to begin with, in terms of the financial benefit. If we then look at the other sources of income, your commercial deal, front of shirt deal, which in the Championship, if Sunderland are getting £500k at the moment, that's good.
“You can add a zero to that and more. You're probably looking in the region of £7million to £8million for the front of shirt and then your third source of income is match day. You'll be able to charge more for games, but I don't think the club will go down the route of upping prices significantly for regular fans, but for the commercial and hospitality sector, you'll be able to charge premium prices.
“If you've got Liverpool, Manchester United, City, Arsenal, Chelsea coming to town because people want to be able to entertain their guests and no disrespect, it's a lot easier to sell those tickets if it's clubs of that caliber compared to Swansea at home on a Tuesday night.”