Aston Villa’s Champions League Run Pushes Revenue Near $500M
Aston Villa’s Champions League Run Pushes Revenue Near $500M
The Premier League’s Aston Villa FC is one of the oldest and most storied clubs in English soccer with seven league titles and seven FA Cup wins during its 150-year history. Yet AVFC had one glaring hole on its resume before this season: no UEFA Champions League appearances.
Last year, Aston Villa punched its Champions League ticket for 2024-25 with a fourth-place finish in the Premier League. The English club will face Club Brugge of Belgium on Tuesday in the first leg of its round-of-16 matchup, after surviving the competition’s rejiggered opening phase. It is part of a renaissance on and off the field for the team, which is based in Birmingham, the UK’s second-largest metro area after London with 4 million people.
“Winning is one thing, but being ready to capitalize on it is another,” Chris Heck, Aston Villa president of business operations, said in a video interview. Heck expects revenue for the 2024-25 season to fall between £360 million and £370 million ($457 million to $470 million based on current exchange rates). Those earnings are double the £179 million posted by the club during the 2021-22 season.
AVFC last appeared in the Champions League’s precursor, the European Cup, in 1982-83 and won the competition in 1982. The team then went through a period of neglect with limited investment in the club or its stadium, Villa Park, which opened in 1897.
But in 2018, Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens bought a majority stake in the club at a valuation of roughly $70 million during a three-season run in the second-division Championship. Sawiris is the richest person in Egypt with a net worth of $9.3 billion, according to Forbes. Edens co-founded asset manager Fortress Investment Group and is a co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, as well as founder of Brightline railway. He is worth an estimated $2.9 billion.
Since they arrived, the billionaires have boosted annual player wages by more than $100 million to roughly $160 million for the 2024-25 season. AVFC secured promotion to the Premier League ahead of the 2019-20 Premier League season and steadily progressed up the table to last year’s fourth-place finish.
Notably, Aston Villa has managed to hold on to prized players with international accolades when clubs in similar positions would usually be pressured to sell them to clubs with more financial firepower. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, a World Cup hero for Argentina, is in his sixth year at Villa Park. Ollie Watkins, a Euro 2024 hero for England, is in his fifth.
Other ownership initiatives have included doubling employee headcount, opening an office in London, investing nearly $40 million in Villa Park and $25 million towards its training facility. The venue renovations have significantly increased hospitality and premium offerings with new pubs, clubs, restaurants and seating, while reducing the number of suites from 70 to 40. Gate revenue has jumped from $1.5 million per game to $2.8 million over the past three years, and Heck said a half-dozen Premier League teams have reached out to discuss the changes AVFC has made to its premium offerings.
In December, the club announced plans to redevelop the north ground of the stadium that will include a new multi-use venue that will be the largest beer hall in the Premier League and a site for concerts and live entertainment year-round. The team is building a new store in the center of the store in a joint venture with Adidas. Aston Villa has already ramped up its concert business at Villa Park. Last year’s shows included Bruce Springsteen and Foo Fighters, while Guns N’ Roses, Black Sabbath (which formed in Birmingham) and Kendrick Lamar are scheduled for 2025.
Aston Villa had a renewal rate on season tickets this year of 97%. It caps the number of season ticket holders to about 27,000 to give the 42,000 fans on the ticket waiting list some access to games.
Heck has a deep background in sponsorships after tenures with the NBA, New York Red Bulls and the Philadelphia 76ers, where he was president for five years before joining AVFC in May 2023. Last year, the club landed a pair of deals that transformed its commercial profile. Adidas signed on as the club’s new kit supplier, and Greek online sports betting platform Betano became its jersey partner. The combined value of the pacts is estimated at $60 million annually.
Revenue has doubled, but the increased investment has triggered significant operating losses for Aston Villa, including a $140 million loss after player trading for the 2022-23 season. The club has not reported 2023-24 results, but Heck says the team will be cash flow positive this season, and the $130 million-plus increase to match day and sponsorship revenue will help in years where Aston Villa does not qualify for the Champions League.
Missing the Champions League in 2025-26 is a real concern. Aston Villa currently sits 10th in the Premier League, with only the first four positions guaranteed a UCL berth. Yet Heck says the goal is to have Aston Villa revenue in the same category as the EPL’s Big Six clubs, who are virtually relegation-proof due to their financial might. For the 2023-24 season, Chelsea had the lowest revenue of those six teams at $573 million.
Over the past seven years, the value of Aston Villa has soared. In early 2024, private equity firm Atairos bought a 20% stake in AVFC that reportedly valued the club at more than $600 million. The firm made further investments during the year, including £50 million ($63.5 million) in October to raise its stake from 26.5% to 31.1%. Edens and Sawiris own 34.4% each. Heck thinks the current valuation of the club is north of £1 billion ($1.27 billion).
“This was a business that didn’t realize its potential,” Heck said. “We think we can build this club to be one of the best in the world.”
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