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Liverpool Beat Manchester City and Chelsea to Top of Earnings Table

In what could be a boost to transfer budgets everywhere, the league's new TV deal brought in record rights earnings for clubs and saw Liverpool top of at least one table this past season.

Christopher Furlong

It may not be the league title, but Liverpool came out top of at least one table this past season as they earned more money from the Premier League than any other side. Proving the club are still amongst the biggest draws in football despite a recent down spell, the Reds earned £1M more than nearest rivals Manchester City in combined prize and television money over the past season, bringing in a total of £97.5M.

City, meanwhile, are only going to receive £96.5M from the league, the champions earning £2M more in prize money than Liverpool but £3M less in combined television revenue. Liverpool will have earned £23.5M in prize money and £74M in television money, putting them just ahead of City and followed quickly by Chelsea, who earned £22M in prize money and £72M in television revenue for a total of £94M and Arsenal, with £21M and £72M for a total of £93M.

Despite finishing seventh in the table, Manchester United are sixth in earnings thanks to £71M of television revenue—more than any side other than Liverpool and City—added to their £17M in prize money. Tottenham just barely beat them to fifth thanks to £1.5M more in prize money while Everton, thanks to the Blues' weaker television draw, finished seventh despite nearly cracking the top four on the pitch.

At the other end of the table, meanwhile, the monster of television revenue still offers up a few nice parting gifts to the recently departed, as despite each earning less than £4M in prize money, Norwich, Fulham, and Cardiff all leave the league having earned close to £65M in total. This is in addition to the parachute payments they will receive from the league to help ease their transition to the Championship.

This is the first season for the new, £1 billion rights deal signed with Sky and BT Sport, which means record television earnings for all the top flight teams. That in turn means it is likely fans will see transfer fees grow even higher this summer while Premier League sides find themselves with a further purchasing power advantage over the vast majority of their continental rivals for players in the market.

Thanks to the windfall, one that appears to have advantaged this season's Liverpool side more than any other, players who a few years ago might have gone for £15-20M may now reasonably be worth £20-25M. Clubs like Arsenal, when they purchased Mesut Ozil for £42M, and Manchester United, when they purchased Juan Mata for £37M, may have already been taking those increased earnings into consideration.

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