Manchester United take early Premier League prize money lead in 2026/27 | OneFootball

Arsenal shattered the record for the prize money earned in a single Premier League season, but Manchester United have a head start in 2026/27.

Premier League prize money surpassed £3billion for the first time last season as those absurd TV deals started to pay literal dividends.

The remuneration for each club 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’.

Those Premier League clubs, of course, then kindly ensure an equitable distribution of such ridiculous funds across the rest of the European leagues by signing everyone’s players.

Arsenal were paid approximately £198.7m as champions – far clear of Manchester City’s previous single-season record £176.2m in 2022/23 – while Chelsea received around £162m for burning through managers and failing to qualify for Europe.

Spurs were chucked £135.8m – an increase of £8m or so on their previous 17th-placed finish the campaign prior – while Wolves landed £117.7m for their efforts in finishing bottom. It pays to be in the Premier League.

Some of those payments are fixed. All 20 clubs automatically receive around £99.9m through an equal share distributed based on both the domestic (£31.9m in 2025/26) and international (£56.5m in 2025/26) broadcast deals – those TV rights are lucrative for a reason – as well as £11.5m each from central commercial revenue streams.

The rest is variable, based on where clubs finished and how often their games were selected for broadcast. The Premier League usually reveals the official figures during the summer but have yet to do so, meaning The Athletic have had to step in and crunch the numbers.

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.

The team finishing bottom receives only the basic merit payment, while the champions take home 20 times that number. For the 2025/26 season, the difference in prize money was believed to be a record £3.76m per position.

Wolves were given as much for coming 20th, with Arsenal landing just over £75m from their league finish alone. It basically helped pay for Bruno Guimaraes.

That win over Chelsea on the final day of 2025/26 catapulted Sunderland into the Europa League and from 10th to 7th, earning them £11.3m in one game.

That headline £3.76m figure per position can be expected to fluctuate somewhat with inflation and other factors – it had previously been around £2.7m and had never been higher than £3.1m – but it offers a rough guide as to what clubs should expect to earn this season.

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 2025/26, Aston Villa, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest had 34 games televised in the UK, for which they were projected to receive between £18.4m and £23.9m.

Not all live games are worth the same amount. Those moved for broadcast because of European participation, rather than specifically selected by Sky Sports, TNT and other services ahead of time, are less lucrative.

Arsenal had 33 matches shown and received £23.6m. Liverpool (31 games for £21.7m), Manchester City (32 games for £21.2m), Chelsea (31 games for £21.3m), Spurs (31 games for £20.9m) and Newcastle (31 games for £20.5m) were televised frequently and rewarded handsomely.

Burnley were shown on the fewest occasions and received £10.7m in facility fees for their 17 live televised UK fixtures.

What Premier League clubs will earn based on their TV selection this season

A new record £6.7bn domestic rights deal kicked in last season and promised to see the number of live games rocket up to around 270 of a possible 380, with every Premier League game outside the protected Saturday 3pm kick-offs to be broadcast live.

Sky Sports alone aired well over 200 of those after buying four of the five packages on offer, with at least four Premier League matches broadcast 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 50 or so matches, including all Saturday 12.30pm kick-offs and two midweek match rounds. The BBC have 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. The aforementioned fluctuation in those payments makes it impossible to outline one specific number in terms of how much a live game is worth, but it generally translates to roughly £0.7m.

How many times each Premier League club has been picked for TV this season (up to and including matchweek 9)

Sky Sports and TNT have been busy, picking their live Premier League games this season up to the start of November before a ball has even been kicked.

Manchester United are the only club to have all of their games selected so far, with Newcastle and Spurs next as their respective lack of European football makes for an easier fixture schedule to mess around.

Poor Ipswich have only been picked three times upon their return. That is presumably punishment for failing to control Ed Sheeran.

1) Manchester United (9 games) – worth around £6.3m

=2) Newcastle and Spurs (8 games) – worth around £5.6m

=4) Arsenal, Aston Villa and Chelsea (7 games) – worth around £4.9m

7) Liverpool (6 games) – worth around £4.2m

=8) Bournemouth, Coventry, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leeds, Manchester City and Nottingham Forest (5 games) – worth around £3.5m

=15) Brentford, Brighton, Fulham, Hull and Sunderland (4 games) – worth around £2.8m