Arsenal’s latest commercial deal with technology giants Meta will help them in negotiations with sponsors, with the club approaching a crucial juncture in their long-standing partnership with Emirates.
Emirates have been Arsenal’s front-of-shirt and stadium naming rights partner since the move away from Highbury. The latest version of the deal is worth around £50m annually, or £250m over its five-year terms.
Arsenal Insider understands that both parties are determined to continue the partnership, but there will be discussions around price ahead of the contract’s expiry in 2028.
The deal likely contains year-on-year price increases anyway, as well as performance-related bonuses should Mikel Arteta’s side win the Premier League or Champions League. However, the Gunners’ brand is in a far better place than it was when they last shook hands with Emirates in August 2023.
Arsenal’s commercial/matchday income is BOOMING
Apart from expanding the Emirates, what else can the Kroenkes do to increase revenue?
And what’s more, the club is planning to expand the stadium in a project that would likely begin during the course of the next iteration of the Emirates deal.
Looking at the broader commercial picture, Arsenal’s annual revenue from sponsorship, retail and events last season was a club-record £268m, up by over £100m in the last five years.
Their kit deal with Adidas goes from strength to strength, while a new shirt sleeve deal with Deel beginning next season is expected to be worth double its predecessor with Visit Rwanda. But it isn’t just the big-ticket sponsorship items whose value is booming.
The North Londoners have deepened their portfolio of junior partners in recent seasons too. The latest deal is with Meta, the firm which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, whose revenue was over $200bn in the last financial year.
The deal is part content, part data, part sponsorship. The announcement of the partnership last week revealed that there would be a branding presence at the Emirates Stadium as well as various activations via Facebook and WhatsApp.
But according to University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, the most valuable element of the deal to Arsenal might be what it reveals about their supporters and global footprint.
By measuring fans’ engagement with the club, the Price of Football podcast host said in exclusive conversation with Arsenal Insider, Arsenal will be able to use the statistics to extract maximum value from sponsors.
“Everyone uses Instagram – and the people that are too old to use Instagram are on Facebook. We’re all addicted to screens, so you can clearly see the benefits to Arsenal.
“When you have this data through Meta, you can go to sponsors and tell them exactly how many fans you have in, say, America or Cyprus. When you’re trying to strike commercial partnerships with high impact in localised regions, it makes sense, it works and it’s powerful.
“Arsenal are looking to broaden their sponsorship right by going down that geographical segmentation route. When you have these statistics, you can use them to get an extra million here and there. It’s all about demonstrating that these sponsorship deals are actually valuable to potential partners.”
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