£126m final league payout for Newcastle

NEWCASTLE United have earned almost £126million from the 2017/18 Premier League campaign after securing a top-half finish – which will hopefully help bolster the transfer budget Rafa Benitez is afforded this summer.

The Magpies’ match against Chelsea on Sunday was essentially a ‘£10m match’, given that United could have slipped from 10th to as low as 15th place if they had lost and results had gone against them.

But Benitez’s men hammered the Blues 3-0 at St James’ Park on Sunday to cement 10th place – and with it roughly £21.9m worth of merit money from the central Premier League pot.

Had Newcastle finished in 15th, they would have claimed just £11.9m in terms of a performancerelated payment from the Premier League. Champions Manchester City will receive almost £40m as a merit payment, while bottom-ofthe-table West Bromwich Albion will take home less than £2m.

On top of that £21.9m merit money, the Magpies also received more than £22m in ‘facility fees’ payments which are distributed depending on the number of times a team is selected for live broadcast. The Magpies were shown 18 times collectively by Sky Sports and BT Sport, making them the eighth most-broadcast side in the top flight. Seventh-placed Burnley, meanwhile, had a Premier League low of seven games broadcast live, while Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal had the most with 28.

While merit money and facility fees vary by club, all 20 top-flight teams also receive three equal payments: their share of domestic TV revenue, their share of overseas TV revenue, and also their share of the centralcommercial contracts.

Each Premier League team will receive £35.9m from the domestic TV deal, a further £41.3m from the overseas deal, and £4.9m from the central-commercial deal.

As a result, when you add all five of those payments together, Newcastle will bank almost £125.9m from their first season back in the top flight.

Given that they received less than £50m during the 2016/17 campaign when they won the Championship - accumulated from parachute payments, prize money and then TV broadcast revenue Newcastle have more than doubled their takings in less than a year.

It must be noted that Newcastle do not receive the £125.9m as one lump sum; in fact, United have already been granted some payments across the course of the season.