Arsenal’s revenue was £467m in 2022-23, the last financial year for which data is available. That was comfortably the lowest of any of the so-called Big Six sides.
Granted, the gap will shrink when they release their 2023-24 accounts, reflecting their return to the Champions League.
Screenshot of Arsenal's financial accounts for the 2022-23 season
But it will not eliminated entirely – not by a long shot.
One aspect of their commercial operation that is helping Arsenal to hang onto the coattails of their rivals is the club’s partnership with Adidas.
Over the eight-year contract that was renewed in 2022, Arsenal’s kit deal with Adidas is worth £600m.
And, in an interesting detail, a close commercial partner has now revealed how one particular feature of the deal with the German sportswear giants’ relationship “stabilised” the club at a low point for Arteta.
Did Adidas kit launch help save Mikel Arteta’s job?
Homeground are a sports-focused creative agency whose clients include brands like Adidas, which has seen them work closely with Arsenal since 2020.
Speaking on the Unofficial Partner podcast, which zeroes in on football finance issues among a wide array of sports business topics, Homeground’s top people shared their experience of working with the Gunners.
“Fans love the lows as much as they love the highs,” said Nico Tuppen, the agency’s director and co-founder, speaking about the kit launches they have done with Arsenal.
“So we were working on Arsenal when they were literally at the full Arteta out era – like, real trouble. I think there might even have been planes. It was bad. AFTV, they were at full power.
“The new shirt’s coming out. So what do you do? You can ignore all of that and be like, look, the new shirt and honour and integrity and passion and all this stuff that everyone talks about.
“Or, you can be like, dude, there’s no way of escaping this. You have to lean into how your fan base feels about the club and particularly about this manager. You’ve got to embrace it.
“And we [said to Adidas] we think you should build this shirt launch around [Arteta] and have him give a team talk to the Arsenal fan base as if it was the first team.
“Full credit to Arsenal, they did not shy away from that. They saw the value in it. That’s the kind of club they are as well. Like great relationship with their fan base, the community. They’re well up for that kind of stuff.
“We create something for him where Arteta gives a pep talk to the Arsenal faithful and says, look, man, it’s okay to disagree, you know, family hurt each other, all that kind of stuff.
“But there’s a few non-negotiables that we should always observe, and then he talks about how we’ve got respect to each other and all this kind of stuff.
“And that film pops up every few months when there’s a little dip in Arsenal’s form and has done since five years ago. That pops up, people, the Arsenal fan base share it about.
“And if you just read the comments and engage, it stabilised the vibe around the club.
“He is quite a sort of difficult guy to read. He’s quite enigmatic. There’s a sort of robotic aspect to him in a nice way. But we all knew there was something else lies beneath.
The company logo of Germany's sports equipment maker Adidas is seen on a building in Herzogenaurach, southern Germany, on July 3, 2023. (Photo by C...
Photo by CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images
“I think he’s someone that you need to have a different approach with him. We wouldn’t have suggested an idea like that if it was a different manager.
“But we knew that he could deliver that with sincerity, and the audience would believe him and they’d listen to him.
“So it was really, it was, I’d go so far as to say, that was a campaign about Arteta. It wasn’t really about Arsenal.”
Do Arsenal have the funds to spend in January?
In terms of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), there are only a handful of clubs who have more headroom to spend in January.
However, having the ability to spend does not necessarily mean they will.
Stan Kroenke, Arsenal’s principle owner, has historically preferred the club to be self-funding, meaning every penny they spend in the recruitment and retention department must be earned commercially.
He has strayed from this approach a little in recent seasons, but he wants the club to run sustainably in the long term.
The Adidas deal and the rest of their sponsorship portfolio gives them a good base.
But their commercial operation is still portfolio and is no way near as lucrative as Tottenham, Liverpool, Chelsea or the two Manchester clubs’.
Whether they spend in January or not therefore depends on whether Kroenke is personally willing to put his hand in his pocket to bankroll new signings
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