Stan Kroenke has 'extraordinary vision' as Arsenal plan to blast £500m on 80,000 Emirates expansion

01/06/2025 03:45 PM

With profitability a distant aim for most, Premier League clubs are looking to stadium redevelopment projects as the next big revenue panacea – and Arsenal are joining the party.

By the end of next season, it will have been 20 years since the Emirates Stadium was officially opened at a ceremony featuring the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Arsenal royalty then-present and past.

Incidentally, Queen Elizabeth II was meant to cut the ribbon but withdrew due to illness.

On that date, 22 July 2006, the Emirates was comfortably the second-largest stadium by capacity in the Premier League, behind only Manchester United’s Old Trafford.

By the time its two-decade anniversary arrives, it will be the sixth-biggest.

West Ham, Liverpool and, of course, North London arch-rivals Tottenham have now surpassed Arsenal. Manchester City will by that time have finalised an expansion that will see capacity hit 61,000.

Man United, who are already the biggest matchday income generators in English football by far, could soon be in a different universe financially given Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s plans to build a 100,000-seater ground.

In a few more years, Newcastle United and Chelsea are expected to break the 60,000 barrier, whether through expansions of St James’ Park and Stamford Bridge respectively or entirely new constructions.

In short, what was once a best-in-class stadium is no longer so. Arsenal still generated £103m in matchday income in the last financial year, but their lead on the chasing pack is slowly dwindling.

Matchday income is the lowest of Arsenal’s three main annual revenue streams, with media (£193m) and commercial (£171m) significantly more lucrative as it stands.

However, the big brains in the world of football finance are increasingly looking to matchday income because it is the one area where, if there is sufficient demand, they can really steal a match on their rivals.

TV rights deals are negotiated centrally by the Premier League itself and income is fixed over a four-year rights cycle. The sponsorship market meanwhile is staggeringly competitive.

The ceiling in terms of matchday income, on the other hand, is less defined.

Bricks-and-mortar stadium projects are expensive but top-end clubs believe they represent the biggest growth opportunity and the chance to diversify away from media and commercial income.

But why should you, as a fan, care?

For one, in the age of Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR, formerly known as FFP), spending on recruitment and retention is inextricably tied to revenue.

With Arsenal shopping in a market where targets like Newcastle’s Alexander Isak are valued at £150m, the club’s future competitiveness on the pitch relies on revenue trending up and to the right on the graph.

More importantly, the stadium is the soul of any football club. Supporters have a right to dictate to what extent it is commercialised.

Arsenal are plotting major upgrades to the Emirates Stadium and, although the plans are only in their infancy at present, fans will be the most effective pressure group in deciding the direction the club takes.

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Stan Kroenke’s stadium masterplan

When billionaires sanction massive capital expenditure projects, the aim is almost always to increase the overall value of the business with a view to one day selling it for a huge profit.

That is the case at the other outposts in Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke’s sports empire too.

Sports franchises owned by Stan Kroenke

The SoFi Stadium, home of Kroenke’s Los Angeles Rams, is widely recognised as one of the best in the world. The venue has helped make the NFL side the seventh-most valuable sports franchise in the world.

Arsenal got to witness it first-hand when Mikel Arteta’s side played Man United at the SoFi in a friendly in July. It was their second match at the arena having played Barcelona there the year before.

Elsewhere in the KSE network, his side MLS side Colorado Rapids play at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, an 18,000-seater stadium whose construction was funded by Kroenke and opened in 2005.

Kroenke bought the Ball Arena, formerly known as the Pepsi Center, as part of the deal to acquire the NBA franchise Denver Nuggets and NHL side Colorado Avalanche in 2000.

He has since been involved in numerous redevelopment projects and initiatives at the 18,000-seater multipurpose stadium in the intervening years.

Now, as detailed in a new report in the US, Kroenke has received approval for a massive real estate project on land connected to the stadium encompassing 6,000 residential units.

This, one executive told the Denver Post, was part of the long-term masterplan Kroenke had in store when he took over the Nuggets and Avalanche franchises over 20 years ago.

"The Kroenkes have an extraordinary vision [relating] to professional sports and real estate,” said Mike Neary, KSE's executive vice president of business operations.

The takeaway? Kroenke exhibited more than two decade’s worth of extraordinary patience for this element of his takeover strategy to pay off – and he is now doing something similar with Arsenal.

He paid around £1bn in total for 100 per cent control and, as Liverpool University football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire has told TBR Football, will probably spend £500m more on redeveloping the Emirates.

According to most appraisals, Arsenal are valued at around £3bn. With a planned 80,000-seater stadium expansion – which would likely be financed by debt – that would shoot up considerably.

Just as has been the case with his investment in Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Ball Arena, his patience will pay off when he eventually comes to sell the Gunners.

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What an expanded Emirates Stadium would mean for Mikel Arteta’s transfer budget

On a pro-rata calculation, an extra 20,000 seats at the Emirates would see Arsenal’s matchday income rise to around £137m.

In actuality, the inevitable increased focus on hospitality – as heralded by the club’s new corporate deal with JP Morgan – would see that figure rise far higher.

That is before one considers the commercial benefits that would arise as a result of redevelopment, such as the ability to renegotiate the naming rights deal with Emirates, as well as other sponsors.

For Mikel Arteta, on the off chance he is still in charge when the long-term project is eventually complete, that would be a game-changer for the recruitment and retention budget.

Yes, Kroenke will hope that the Emirates Stadium expansion can open a pathway to more sustained profitability for Arsenal and that will mean not all of the excess would go towards the playing budget.

This has been seen at Spurs, where investment in the playing squad is rising slower than revenue – but it is rising all the same.

In essence, more money through the turnstiles and corporate hospitality suites will be central to Arsenal’s continued ability to match their rivals in the transfer market.