The stadium has become an increasingly important driver of club revenue performance. Decisions around pricing, hospitality, premium seating, retail space, and the broader use of the venue on non-matchdays are all areas where club strategy can impact long-term revenue generation capabilities.
Across Europe, this focus on the stadium as a core asset has sharpened. This is particularly relevant as clubs reassess capital allocation, pricing strategy, and long-term revenue resilience in an environment of rising costs and increased competition for commercial income. In recent years, several leading clubs have been investing heavily in new or refurbished stadiums, while others have adapted their matchday strategies to extract more value from existing infrastructure.
Using the top 20 European clubs by matchday revenue in the 2024/25 season as the reference group, this article analyses matchday performance through three lenses: the current matchday revenue hierarchy, how matchday revenues have evolved per club since pre-pandemic, and how efficiently these clubs are converting stadium capacity into revenue.
Matchday revenue at the top end of the European game
Real Madrid lead the ranking with €232.6 million in matchday revenue in 2024/25, followed by Manchester United FC (€190.7 million), Arsenal FC (€183.0 million), Paris Saint-Germain FC (€176.6 million), and FC Barcelona (€150.2 million), completing the top five.
Real Madrid’s position reflects the significant long-term financial impact of the revamped Santiago Bernabéu. The redevelopment has materially expanded the stadium’s commercial capabilities through upgraded premium areas, integrated retail units, and improved flexibility to host non-matchday events. These changes have pushed matchday revenues to a new level and are expected to support further growth as the stadium is fully leveraged across both matchdays and non-matchdays.
Looking beyond absolute figures, the share of matchday to total operating revenue highlights differences across business models. Manchester City FC recorded the lowest matchday reliance among the top 20, at 11%, reflecting a revenue mix heavily weighted towards broadcasting and commercial income.
This contrasts with clubs for whom matchday remains the financial backbone of operations. Celtic FC generated €71.7 million from matchday income last season, representing 42% of the club’s total operating revenue, the highest dependency in the top 20. AFC Ajax also had a high matchday share at 36%. These profiles are more common among historically successful clubs outside the “Big Five” European leagues, where broadcasting income and global commercial scale are more limited. In these smaller markets, a successful matchday strategy can make the difference between sustainability and financial struggles.
Matchday revenue growth
Comparing matchday revenues to 2018/19, the last full season before the COVID-19 disruption, highlights how uneven recovery and growth have been across the leading clubs. Aston Villa FC have recorded the strongest growth among the top 20 European clubs by 2024/25 matchday revenue, rising from €14.5 million in 2018/19 to €80 million last season (+453%, +€65.5 million). This reflects a markedly different sporting context across the period, with the club competing in the English Championship in 2018/19 and reaching the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals in 2024/25.
Other strong growth profiles include Galatasaray SK, increasing from €26.6 million to €81.7 million (+207%), and Newcastle United FC, rising from €28.2 million to €68 million (+141%). In Galatasaray’s case, part of the increase also reflects currency effects linked to the depreciation of the Turkish lira and the extraordinary accounting principle applied by Turkish clubs, which should be considered when interpreting growth rates.
At the other end of the spectrum, FC Barcelona recorded a decline from €174.9 million in 2018/19 to €150.2 million in 2024/25 (-14%, -€24.7 million). This reflects the impact of temporarily playing away from Camp Nou during the stadium redevelopment, which has constrained matchday revenues in the short term. Notably, in 2022/23, the final season before renovation works began, Barcelona generated €190.0 million in matchday revenue, underlining the earning potential of a revamped Camp Nou once the redevelopment is completed.
Matchday efficiency and per-seat monetisation
RevPEPAS (revenue per event per available seat) provides a different view of matchday performance by focusing on efficiency rather than scale. It is calculated by dividing total matchday revenue by the combined seating capacity across all competitive home fixtures played during the season. This helps account for differences in stadium size and the number of home games when comparing clubs.
Paris Saint-Germain recorded the highest RevPEPAS among the top 20 last season at €147.4, indicating the strongest revenue generation per available seat on a per-event basis. Real Madrid (€102.5) and Arsenal (€100.5) follow, with their high absolute matchday revenues coinciding with strong per-seat outcomes. FC Barcelona (€95.9), Liverpool FC (€91.1), Chelsea FC (€90), Manchester United (€85.5), and Tottenham Hotspur (€82.3) form the next group, with a notable drop-off thereafter.
This separation reflects pricing power and demand at the top end of the market. Most clubs in this group benefit from global fan bases and consistently high demand, allowing higher average ticket prices, while in some cases, notably Real Madrid and Tottenham, more recent stadium investment has further supported per-seat revenue. Local market conditions also play a role, with some clubs based in large, high-income cities, such as London and Paris, able to sustain higher matchday ticket prices.
Further down the ranking, Italian giants AC Milan (€33.9) and FC Internazionale Milano (€47.1) reflect lower per-seat revenue rather than a lack of demand, highlighting the limits of the current stadium in supporting higher-priced hospitality and premium seating compared with leading European peers. This helps explain why both Milan clubs have, for years, been engaged in discussions around developing a new stadium as a strategic priority.
Matchday as a point of differentiation
Across Europe, matchday performance is increasingly shaped by how effectively stadiums are monetised rather than by attendance alone. Strong absolute matchday revenues do not automatically translate into high per-seat outcomes, with RevPEPAS highlighting differences in efficiency beneath the headline figures. Clubs that effectively align pricing strategy, hospitality & premium offerings, stadium utilisation, and proactive fan engagement tend to achieve significantly higher per-seat revenue.
This matters in an environment where average attendances across several top European leagues have continued to rise in recent seasons, even as ticket prices have typically increased. The ability to convert demand into revenue growth is becoming a clearer point of differentiation in matchday performance.
In both large and smaller leagues, the importance of matchday has increased. Broadcasting revenues remain sensitive to sporting outcomes and commercial income is increasingly competitive, while matchday is anchored in a tangible asset where clubs retain meaningful influence over outcomes: the stadium.
For clubs, the implication is straightforward. Matchday performance is no longer driven only by attendance or the number of home games, but by strategic decisions around how the stadium is used, how matchday products are structured, and how demand is priced. These choices increasingly influence the resilience and sustainability of club revenues over time. Consequently, more and more clubs are viewing stadium redevelopment or new stadium projects not as optional upgrades, but as strategic levers to future-proof matchday revenues.
Football Benchmark supports clubs across stadium business-related decision-making, from assessing matchday performance and benchmarking efficiency, to advising on stadium development, redevelopment and monetisation strategies aligned with long-term financial objectives.
