Premier League Prize Money: How Much Does Each Position Win?
The gap between rich and poor in English football has grown significantly in the last couple of decades. This is highlighted by the relatively recent introduction of Premier League parachute payments for clubs relegated from the top flight, a move designed to address the serious drop-off in revenue that occurs when teams suddenly lose access to the immense levels of broadcasting and sponsorship cash that comes with top-tier competition.
Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult for promoted sides to compete with the very best when they do achieve promotion to the promised land, with the last two Premier League seasons seeing all three newly promoted teams relegated immediately (this is the first time this has happened in successive campaigns since the PL was formed in 1992/93).
Within the top flight, there are some extreme financial disparities between clubs, and that is reinforced each season when teams are handed lump sums by the league that vary depending on performance.
The Premier League table after each matchweek across the season 📈 pic.twitter.com/nltSyA8fF9
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 26, 2025
This article will focus on that end-of-season Premier League prize money, exploring how much each position wins at the end of the campaign in order to flesh out the extra incentives that exist for coaches seeking a higher league finish. But before we dive into these cash prizes, we're going to look into the amount of money promoted teams earn from reaching the top tier in the first place.
How Much Is Promotion To The Premier League Worth?
The Championship play-off final — a one-off fixture that takes place each May between two clubs who have finished in the top six of the second tier and are now battling it out for promotion to the Premier League — has repeatedly been labelled the most lucrative game in world football.
Due to the prestige of the English top flight and the enormous broadcasting revenue available to clubs that make it there, winning this fixture can have a huge impact on the future of a second-tier football club.
According to Goal, winning the Championship play-off final can lead to an increase in revenue of between £135 million and £265 million, depending on whether or not the promoted team can avoid relegation straight back down again (a task which is proving increasingly difficult for modern clubs).
This is a huge sum of money, and it explains the large number of Championship clubs that consistently operate beyond their means and run at a loss in the hopes of reaching the promised land and earning a major cash injection.
The problem is, Premier League money doesn't mean long-term sustainability; the recent relegation of Luton Town from the Championship to League One shows how a poorly managed team that comes down from the top flight is not immune to a second successive relegation to the third tier.
Sides benefiting from parachute payments should always be wary of how quickly their fortunes can change.
Premier League Prize Money: How Much Does Each Position Win?
While each Premier League outfit benefits from being part of the most successful domestic league in the world, it's far from being an even league, with a huge amount of variation in terms of revenue between clubs.
A recently released prize money table showed that the 20 clubs competing in the 2023/24 PL season each received a base payment of £31.2m from the league, representing an equal share of the £624m pot distributed between clubs in the top flight from domestic broadcasting.
On top of that, each club also got an additional £63.9m each from the extremely lucrative international broadcasting deals the Premier League has locked in. This meant each club gained roughly £95m from TV deals, regardless of where they finished in the league.
However, as well as receiving this guaranteed broadcasting revenue money, all Premier League clubs also receive 'facility fees' based on the number of games they were involved in that were televised on the official PL broadcaster Sky Sports.
In 2023/24, Arsenal were involved in more televised matches than any other EPL side, meaning they gained £26.9m from this income stream, while lower-placed, less glamorous clubs like Burnley and Sheffield United only received £9.8m and £11.8m respectively from facility fees.
There's another form of distributed payment that is more fair than pure broadcasting numbers; each season, every Premier League is handed what the Premier League describes as a 'merit payment' based on performance.
As it stands, the team that wins the league will receive a merit payment of roughly £34m (Man City received £33.8m in 2023/24) while the team finishing bottom will receive a fee of £1.7m (in the same season, this was Sheffield United).
This plethora of different income streams means there can be a significant amount of fluctuation in revenue between the 20 clubs in the Premier League. And while merit payments are designed to reward performance, it's not as simple as the higher you finish, the more money you receive.
Facility fees mean that it's possible for a club to earn more money than a team that finishes higher in the league than them if they are involved in more televised games.
This happened last season, when Aston Villa clinched 4th place and managed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since the competition was formed, gaining a £28.7m merit payment while 5th-placed Tottenham Hotspur received a merit payment of £27m.
However, the fact that Spurs were involved in more televised domestic games meant that the North London outfit earned £5m more than Villa in facilities fees and therefore had more PL revenue than their higher-placed rivals.
How Much Is Champions League Qualification Worth?
Finishing fourth and ensuring Champions League qualification may not have allowed Villa to earn more Premier League money than Spurs, but that didn't stop it from being a hugely lucrative event for the club.
In addition to bringing a massive amount of cultural prestige and player-attracting power, Champions League qualification can also generate substantial revenue for clubs.
A recent BBC Sport report broke down the financial benefits of reaching Europe's most prestigious knockout club competition; according to renowned football finance expert Kieran Maguire, "A good season in the Champions League can be worth far in excess of £100m.
By the time you combine gate receipts, sponsor bonuses and the prize money available, the numbers involved are eye-watering." Maguire specifies the importance of having a "good season" because the amount of money that can be earned fluctuates massively depending on performance.
In the 2024/25 season, Manchester City's sub-par Champions League displays led them to finish 22nd in the newly structured UCL league phase before being dumped out by Real Madrid in the play-offs.
It's thought that their qualification and subsequent performance in the competition this season earned them a total of around £64m. Meanwhile, Premier League rivals Arsenal, who stormed through the league phase, Last 16 and quarter-finals before ultimately losing to PSG in the semi-finals, earned a substantially higher Champions League fee of around £97m.
There are a number of different factors that are taken into account to determine the total fee earned by a club in the Champions League. Firstly, qualification for the tournament is worth an initial £16m cash prize.
Then, every time a club records a victory in the UCL league phase, they receive an additional £1.8m, meaning across the eight league games, clubs can earn a potential total of £14.4m.
Even a draw is worth £600,000, so getting results in the Champions League first phase can be highly profitable, with Maguire saying "A modest set of results of three wins, three draws and two defeats, and a 10th-place finish, would therefore generate £13m.
A perfect set of results in the group stage would earn £22m." Ultimately, a team's place in the final 36-team league table is crucial, with each place worth an estimated £800,000 (Liverpool reportedly bagged a whopping £82.7m for topping the league phase in 2024/25).
The prize money in the knockout rounds of the Champions League vastly outstrips this, with roughly £20m extra available for clubs that reach the quarter-finals and an eye-watering £54m for the winners of the competition in prize funds alone.
On top of that, an increased number of games in the tournament also allows clubs to generate millions of pounds of extra revenue from ticket sales, matchday income, and commercial deals, with far more lucrative sponsorship contracts on the line for clubs who compete in Europe's premier knockout competition.
With all this in mind, it's easy to see why Champions League qualification is so sought-after in the Premier League and across Europe's other big leagues. Competing in the tournament doesn't just give you extra status and buying power, it also massively increases the amount of cash you have at your disposal.
While general Premier League prize money ensures that each club in the English top-flight is earning plenty, squeezing into the top five and securing Champions League qualification will have more of an impact on a club's annual revenue than any other potential league finish.
Check out our in-depth guide to the new Champions League format if you want to find out more about how the league and play-off phase works and why UEFA decided to switch things up.
Related Articles
What Are Premier League Parachute Payments And How Much Do Relegated Teams Get?
