Warning: This is not science!
After a scoreless run of three games by Aston Villa, you’d be forgiven for thinking this article is irrelevant to the claret and blue. The inspiration for Sporting Intelligence (who created these tables) calculating how much a goal in the Premier League was worth, came when they were pondering Wayne Rooney’s new £300,000-a-week wage. How would Manchester United see any value from paying that out?
The figures are just taking into account the Premier League part of the media cash granted to clubs. So no Champion’s League money, match day income and merchandise etc
With the original article triggered by Rooney’s wages, they make the following observation from their findings:
One could argue Rooney needs only 11 Premier League goals this season for United to repay his salary; and any other goals in other competitions come free. Why? Because weekly pay of £300k means annual pay of £15.6m, so 11 goals at £1.54m each are worth £16.94m. Rooney has 10 PL goals this season already.
Granted, in terms of comparing team’s goal values it’s a pointless exercise, but looking at your own team it’s interesting trivia. For example, how does Christian Benteke compared to that? After all, it hasn’t been a great season for the Belgian forward so far, despite doubling his weekly wage with his new deal in the summer
Benteke’s weekly wage is to have reportedly doubled to £60k a week, thus his annual pay is £3,120,000. His seven league goals this season are forecasted (see below table) to be worth £1,886,208, meaning the Belgian’s contribution of 7 goals so far this season has been worth £13,203,456.
So, in actual fact, Villa are already £10 million up on him! Getting back over four times the annual wage he’s paid.
Now lets look at what Benteke brought Villa last season. If his weekly pay was then £30k, his annual pay would have been £1,560,000 (a tenth of what Rooney is earning this season!) So 19 league goals at £956,756 a pop, means Benteke’s contribution was worth £18,178,364. Now that’s a decent investment for a striker! Villa got back over 11 and a half times his wage.
Of course, this is not an exact science in any way, as you can’t really apply it to any other position in a football team. But it is an interesting way to evaluate strikers to some degree. It’s no wonder they tend to be paid more than most players.
With the new TV deals in place this year, the value of goals in terms of Premier League TV cash has gone up more than 50%. So, there is at least some excuse for paying Rooney that silly money.
The average worth of a Premier League goal in the last three seasons:
2011-12 – £908,228
2012-13 – £914,550
2013-14 – £1,542,107
The Benteke and Rooney figures are based off this table. How it’s worked out is explained in the table – N.B. – IT IS NOT A PREDICTION!
