How Much Premier League Relegation Could Cost Man Utd

If the unthinkable should happen and Manchester United are relegated from the Premier League, it might seriously test Avram Glazer’s belief that the club’s sporting performance does not negatively impact commercial power—and, by extension, financial value.

United finished 15th in the Premier League in 2024–25 after a slump in the final stages of the campaign. But relegation for the first time since 1973–74 was never a genuine concern and the club was not in the bottom three at any point during the season.

At the second international pause of 2026–27, it feels more plausible. United are 18th in the standings and could even have been in last place had Crystal Palace upset Liverpool and Patrick Dorgu not snatched a 96th-minute equalizer against Aston Villa. Every other team in the division has won at least twice as many matches as the Red Devils through 10 rounds so far.

United still aren’t favored to go down by Opta’s supercomputer, but a 21.57% chance that isn’t much better than the odds given to Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Ipswich Town is alarming.

Towards the end of last season, BBC Sport analysis estimated that possible relegation for Tottenham Hotspur—which the club eventually avoided, albeit only just—would have taken £261 million ($346.6 million) off of revenue for the following season.

Manchester United are a bigger deal and potentially have further to fall.

Parachute Payments

The Championship ball. — There are financial measures in place for relegated clubs. | Stephen Pond/Getty Images

Clubs relegated from the Premier League receive parachute payments to soften the crash landing in the EFL Championship. Those who fall through the trapdoor this season will get three years of funds totaling around £110 million ($146.1 million), weighted at more than 50% for the first year and decreasing over the subsequent two.

Those payments can make a huge different to smaller clubs—the like of which would normally be in this position—with lower costs and lower turnover. But United would lose much more when other revenue streams are hit by the relegation.

Last season, the cost of operating the club for one year exceeded £700 million ($929.6 million).

Commercial Revenue

Bruno Fernandes — Right now, the Man Utd jersey is valuable real estate. | Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Getty Images

Commercial revenue, which Avram Glazer seems to think is protected because of the enduring brand power of the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys—neither of whom can be relegated from their respective league—would take an obvious hit.

Jersey partner adidas pay United an estimated £90 million ($119.5 million) annually for the privilege of supplying kit to the club—the brand gets way more back in return. According to the Daily Mail, that sum can be cut in half if the club is not in the Premier League, while not competing in the Champions League comes with another penalty, potentially reducing that figure to just £35 million ($46.5 million)

Worse still, adidas could even cancel the contract—worth up to £900 million ($1.2 billion) over its entire 10-year run until 2035—at one year’s notice.

The club’s front-of-shirt partnership with Qualcomm, displaying the Snapdragon brand, was extended to 2029 surprisingly soon after the initial contract began and there are no reports of break clauses or performance penalties like there are with adidas.

Commercial revenue won’t necessarily disappear overnight—it accounted for £317.3 million ($420.1 million) in 2025–26. But United’s ability to keep attracting high-level sponsors willing to pay huge amounts to be associated with the club will inevitably drop, if only because decreased interest or visibility lessens the value they get out of the partnership.

A stay in the Championship might only be brief, but depending on the impact of that at a sporting level when the club returns to the Premier League, the damage could significantly outlast the initial relegation.

Broadcast Revenue

Gary Neville — Broadcasters pay a lot less to televise EFL Championship matches. | James Gill/Danehouse/Getty Images

EFL Championship clubs make only a fraction of what Premier League teams do from television deals. In the top flight in 2024–25, each club was paid £29.8 million ($39.6 million) from the U.K. broadcast pot and £59.2 million ($78.6 million) for international markets.

There was also a central payment of £7.9 million ($10.5 million) each, making for guaranteed revenue in excess of £96 million ($127.5 million) before any additional fees depending on how many Premier League matches a team has broadcast in the domestic market. When Liverpool had 30 matches out of 38 televised live in the U.K. that season, it pushed their overall income from the Premier League alone to £174.9 million ($232.3 million).

The Champions League, for those that are in it, adds more to the pot, with the amount a club can make dependent on progress in the competition and the value of their country’s TV market. Estimates for Arsenal’s earnings last season exceed £90 million ($120 million).

In the Championship, the central payment for the 2024–25 season came in at around £11 million ($14.6 million), but clubs in receipt of parachute payments aren’t entitled to the full amount anyway. Money from broadcasting alone might only be about £4 million ($5.3 million).

Matchday Revenue

Fans outside Old Trafford — Fans on the ground will become more important if other revenue streams diminish. | Michael Regan/Getty Images

The leading Premier League clubs increasingly view their fans as customers and want to extract as much money from each of those on a matchday as possible.

But fandom across all sport is notoriously fickle. How much demand might there be for things like match tickets, food and beverages, merchandise and hospitality packages if the club is no longer competing in the Premier League and instead hosting second tier teams? Attendances will never completely die, but the appetite of the ‘tourist’ or ‘day-tripper’ fan that clubs increasingly want to target because will usually spend more money greatly reduces when the glamor fades.

Prices would have to come down to entice people beyond the loyal hardcore support to attend lower-level matches.

Once the lifeblood of soccer clubs everywhere, matchday revenue has actually become the smallest income stream for leading Premier League clubs because of their commercial power and broadcasting pull. But it would have to take on renewed importance.

Potential for Lasting Damage

Sticking together 🇾🇪 pic.twitter.com/2s4K0ViXPB
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) November 9, 2026

What would relegation do to Manchester United? A relegation of a club this size has never happened in the Premier League era, which is incomparable to any other era in the entire history of English soccer because of the money involved, disproportionate to the rest of the pyramid.

Half a century ago, when the Red Devils were last relegated, everything was more fluid. It was possible for a team to get promoted into the top flight and then immediately challenge for—or even win—the title. United did exactly that, finishing third in 1975–76, the year after winning the Second Division. Nottingham Forest remarkably won the 1977–78 title off the back of a promotion and then claimed back-to-back European Cups. That could never happen again.

Relegation this season would drastically change United’s roster. It would be impossible not to, given the salaries that current players earn—presumably the distaste most would have for a season or more in the Championship—and the massively reduced revenue that would come back in as a second-tier club. Then it would be a question of what level they would be competing at upon returning to the Premier League, assuming it actually was instant.

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