Which team and fans are getting the best value for their money?
Defining value for money
This can simply be defined as the team with the least squad cost per point and season ticket cost per point. Without accounting for emotional factors (as emotion that one receives from a game isn’t exactly quantifiable), we can then see which fans are making a poor investment in going to the game, and which teams are spending poorly in terms of cost per point.
Transfer Cost per point
Brighton & Hove Albion
Out of the 20 teams that competed in the 2017/18 season, Brighton & Hove Albion had the lowest cost per point (£0.591m per point). While staying up, they managed to sign quality players (Pascal Groß for £3m, José Izquierdo for £13.5m, etc…), while not overspending nor spending too much on players. Apart from having a strong home form, it’s clear that Brighton made the right investments, with Groß, Izqueirdo, and Pröpper all playing critical role in Brighton’s performances last season.
Furthermore, because they mainly signed players from abroad, the transfer fee was significantly lower than it would be if they signed an English player, alongside lower wage demands from the players. Brighton & Hove Albion are fishing in the pond, and it’s no surprise to see them do well in the Premier league.
Spurs
Out of the top 6, Spurs had the lowest cost per point (£1.724m per point), a lower cost per point ratio than the likes of Southampton, Everton, and Crystal Palace. Despite not winning any trophies, Spurs still managed to finish in top 4, despite other teams spending more than them and having higher cost per point.
While Spurs have incurred massive costs from building the new stadium and despite having the chance to buy players during the summer transfer window, Spurs believe in giving players from the youth academy first-team action, something of which has contributed to its low cost model.
Part of Levy’s reluctance to spend money has “forced” Pochettino to play more youth, with games stacking up and the need for squad depth, which as a result allows Spurs to help grow young players, easing them into the first team.
Manchester United
Even though Manchester City had the highest cost-per point (4.125), they won the league so it’s very difficult to explain why City’s cost-per-point was so much yet they did so well. However, following City is Manchester United (£3.949m per point), who finished 19 points behind Manchester City and failed to win a single trophy throughout the season.
Apart from taking a huge gamble on Alexis Sánchez, Manchester United made him the highest paid player in the league. Not only that, but they signed players from other clubs in the league, rather from other European leagues (Romelu Lukaku, Nemanja Matic, etc….). Instead of deciding to buy a world-class player for a cheaper transfer fee and cheaper wages, Manchester United went big on players whose wages didn’t match what they were going to contribute to the team.
The absence of a director of football also heavily contributes. By not having a director of football, the club is essentially depending on the manager to choose which players to buy, but the issue with this model is that the club is that once the manager leaves, the new managers’ squad is filled with players that aren’t wanted. Louis van Gaal signed multiple players such as Memphis Depay and Daley Blind, but when José Mourinho took over, he inherited a squad comprised of a few players that he didn’t want, and eventually sold them for a price cheaper than what they were bought for, making a loss.
Because there is no director of football that’s signing players based on the best interest of the club rather than the manager, Manchester United have been forced to spent big amounts of money on players just so they can give the manager the squad they want. As a result, because most of their recent signings have flopped, they’re selling their players for a cheaper value while overpaying for players.
While commercially Manchester United gets billions of revenue, this still doesn’t hide the fact that they make big mistakes and incur several costs when signing players and assembling a squad.
Everton
Everton also had a notably high cost per point, incurring a cost of £3.032m per game. And this can be explained by poor mistakes in the transfer market. Everton in the summer of 2017 signed too many players in either the same position or in areas that didn’t need urgent replacements, and that as a result caused an unbalanced squad with players playing out of position to cover the gaps.
Despite a new manager with Marco Silva, some of the mistakes made in summer 2017 were replace during the summer of 2018. They signed 3 back-up Barcelona players (Yerry Mina, Andre Gomes, Lucas Digne) for big sums of money, while spending £40m on a player who scored 5 goals for the entirety of the 2017/18 season. Not only that, but because they haven’t signed players from undervalued leagues, Everton as a result have overpaid on players, including giving higher wages for players who are pretty mediocre.
Finding a relationship
If you created a scatterplot depicting the relationship between costs and points, than you would see that there’s a positive relationship. Considering that they’re two quantitative variables and there’s no pattern in the residual, a line of best equation that can be used to calculate how many points or costs a team might get can be determined by the following equation: Points= 0.1573(squad cost)+ 32.7239 (based on 2017/18 figures).
The correlation coefficient is 0.8832, suggesting it’s a strong, positive relationship, and with a r² of 0.78, this means that 78% of the data can be accounted for by this linear model.
Based on this, we can assume that there’s a positive relationship between squad cost and points.
Season ticket cost per point
Based on 538’s projected Premier League points tally for teams at the end of the season, and the cheapest season ticket prices for each team, season ticket cost per point can simply be found by: cheapest season ticket/point.
Newcastle United
At the end of the season, Newcastle are projected to finish with 35 points, causing each game to be worth £16.31 for the cheapest season ticket. Not only does this show that going to Newcastle games is a risky/poor investment, but it also adds to the frustration and hatred that many have towards Mike Ashley.
Despite still charging Newcastle United fans obscene amount of money for a relegation-fighting club, Ashley still decides to take that money without investing any money into the club. Furthermore, Ashley actually does has money (he bought House of Fraser in 2018), he just chooses not to put anything into the club and let the club rot.
While ticket sales is one of Newcastle United’s main sources of revenue, in the future Newcastle should get an owner willing to invest money into the club while lowering down season ticket prices, not only to improve the team, but also to lower the costs that the fans face when paying for season tickets.
Man City
At the end of the season, Manchester City are projected to finish with 90 points, causing each game to be worth £3.44 for the cheapest season ticket. This is the lowest season ticket cost per point in the league, depicting that Manchester City fans get a really good deal out of getting a season ticket.
With the high quality of football, high quality of players, and high # of points, investing in a season-ticket at Manchester City generally results in positive returns.
Finding a relationship
There isn’t necessarily a relationship between season ticket costs and points. With a correlation coefficient of 0.5067, and a r² of 0.2568, we can’t create a predictive model to determine the correlation between season ticket and points.
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