America’s business elite had been promised a sports masterclass from north London when they gathered in Austin, Texas, for last month’s South by Southwest conference. But the session, in which Tottenham Hotspur’s chief revenue officer was to explain how his club had become a “cultural powerhouse”, was cancelled at the 11th hour.
Why? Because some 5,000 miles away, Tottenham’s senior men’s team had just been thumped 5-2 by Atletico Madrid, in effect dumping them out of the lucrative Champions League.
On home soil, five straight league defeats had led fans to fear the unthinkable: that Spurs might be relegated from the Premier League to the Championship. Six weeks and several defeats later, that fear has turned into grim acceptance for some supporters of a club whose tendency to underperform has its own adjective — Spursy.
A Tottenham relegation would represent a seismic shock for global football, not just because the club is a “cultural powerhouse” but because of its sheer financial might.
The Tottenham Hotspur company has established itself as one of the strongest forces in the football business. At the world’s ninth-biggest club, revenues have tripled over a decade to £565 million, thanks in part to a £1 billion stadium that plays host to Beyoncé concerts, American football games and go-karting.
But relegation would be a hammer blow to the club’s finances. “It’s like a government contractor losing a big deal to build a motorway or a high-speed rail line,” said François Godard, a media and sports analyst.
Data firm Ampere Sports reckons that Tottenham’s revenues could drop by £270 million. And the club’s valuation — talked up as high as £4 billion nearly two years ago during an uncompleted 10 per cent stake sale — would also plummet.
One veteran sports deals adviser estimated that, with big clubs generally trading at five or six times the value of their revenues, relegation would wipe at least £1.5 billion off Tottenham’s potential sale price. This, of course, may be academic. The Lewis family, Tottenham’s major shareholder, says: “The club is not for sale. We are committed to, and continuing to invest in, the long-term future of the club.”
How did it come to this? Fan Billie Thorp, of the Change for Tottenham group, blames a boardroom that he feels has put property development and “global branding” ahead of sporting prowess. “They don’t prioritise football,” he said. There are also grumbles about manager turnover and ticket prices that are among the Premier League’s highest.
For many years, the powerbrokers were Joe Lewis, a self-made trading billionaire, and his long-time protégé Daniel Levy. Spurs’ majority owner is Enic, a vehicle owned 70 per cent by a Lewis family trust and 30 per cent by Levy.
Until his mysterious exit last year, Levy was executive chairman and face of the club, while the Bahamas-based Lewis took a back seat. Levy irked fans by selling key players such as Gareth Bale and paying lower wages than rivals, but it was difficult to argue with his approach by the spring of 2019.
Tottenham, regarded as one of the Premier League’s best-run and most profitable businesses, opened its impressive new stadium that April. The following month, the men’s team — led by likeable manager Mauricio Pochettino and featuring England striker Harry Kane alongside South Korean megastar Son Heung-min — reached (and lost) the Champions League final.
However, it has been downhill from there. Pochettino was sacked months later, and so began a flurry of managerial appointments and departures. Levy’s business — hindered by Covid, accounting losses related to the depreciating value of the new stadium and some poor transfer deals — started to rack up losses.
The nadir might have been the summer of 2023, when Kane left for Bayern Munich and Lewis was indicted by US authorities for passing on insider trading tips to his pilots and supermodel girlfriend. (He pleaded guilty to insider trading charges but was later pardoned by President Trump).
Then came 2024-25, when Tottenham won the Europa League but a 17th-placed Premier League finish led to another managerial sacking. The club also sold Son, a star player and big commercial asset whose exit will have a financial knock-on effect if South Korean interest in the club dwindles.
Meanwhile, there was change in the boardroom when Vinai Venkatesham, formerly of arch-rival Arsenal, came in as chief executive. This in effect took power away from Levy, who, after an apparent falling out with the Lewises, left in September. It is believed that brought an end to the effort to sell off a 10 per cent stake in the club.
Shortly afterwards, the Lewis family invested a fresh £100 million, which will increase their stake in the club, and it is understood they plan to invest more in the near future. It’s not clear where this leaves Levy, who retains a paper stake in the club but no power.
Venkatesham, under the chairmanship of Bahamas-based Lewis ally Peter Charrington, has sought to root out issues within the club.
The board, like the fans, now believes the club has been guilty of failing to make on-field success a priority. Bosses recently paused plans to build a 29-storey stadium hotel, pledged to spend more on wages and have made senior hires to improve the club’s record in transfers, injuries and youth development.
But for fans such as Thorp, it was a “massive frustration” that the board did not sufficiently bolster the struggling first-team squad during the January transfer window — especially given that a number of key players had been out through injury since last spring.
Venkatesham did not want to be rushed into spending money rashly and, inside the boardroom, relegation did not feel like a serious threat until February or March. Now, though, the relegation scrap is on.
Tottenham’s board are making contingency plans. Players have relegation clauses to reduce their wages, and Spurs would be able to secure more money through sales. It is thought the club would be prepared to reduce home ticket prices, but it might not lose out too much on matchday sales because there are more fixtures in the Championship.
Still, Ampere Analysis estimates a £200 million to £270 million reduction in Tottenham’s revenues due to lower sponsorship and broadcast deals. That’s even after “parachute payments”, which are handed to a relegated team to ensure their financial resilience.
“The real impact will come in the long term,” said Ben McMurray of Ampere. “If promotion is achieved in the first season, Spurs will have to spend money to restore the assets that were stripped during the transfer window. If [they are not promoted] after one season, parachute payments will begin to dwindle, and costs will have to be cut further.”
For rivals, a Spurs relegation would bring much schadenfreude. But it might not just be bad news for Tottenham; a demotion of this significance could have a negative knock-on effect for other big clubs — by making them appear more vulnerable and, therefore, less valuable to the investors who pump their money into the Premier League.
In the US, many major sports leagues do not have the concept of relegation, so in European football it is an ominous presence. “American investors hate relegation,” said Godard, the sports analyst.
Omar Chaudhuri, chief intelligence officer at sports business advisory firm Twenty First Group, said: “If you’re an investor, you see that Tottenham Hotspur could be relegated and you think: ‘Bloody hell, any club could be relegated! Even a well-established club like Arsenal, Liverpool, whoever — with a few bad seasons, who knows where you could end up?’ Clearly that will be on investors’ minds.”
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