Football is twice as popular as any other spectator sport in the UK, with 42% of all online adults following it during the COVID-19 pandemic despite an initial three-month suspension of competition and matches being played behind closed doors ever since.

Empty stadiums and changes to broadcast agreements have cost Premier League and English Football League (EFL) clubs around £1.7bn already and ended a period of sustained market growth that saw combined revenues grow by 50% over the five seasons to 2018-19.

The two main threats to the market’s full recovery are that the softening of the media rights market seen before the pandemic is amplified by its impact on broadcasting businesses and that younger fans in particular have less money to spend on watching football (in stadiums, pubs or via pay-TV subscriptions) if the COVID recession is prolonged.

However, anticipated post-pandemic desire to socialise with family and friends outside the home also creates an opportunity for football clubs to attract new spectators by positioning themselves as safe places for larger groups to meet, have fun and make new memories together.

• The impact of COVID-19 on the professional football market.

• How fans have followed football during the COVID-19 restrictions.

• Opportunities created by post-pandemic demand for social leisure.

• Changes in fan behaviour following the COVID-19 crisis.

This update was prepared on 6 April, 2021.

The first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the UK at the end of January 2020, with a small number of further infections identified in February. As the case level rose, professional sport was one of the first sectors of the economy to be shut down in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus, with all football being suspended on 13 March.

The government ordered the closure of non-essential stores a week later and then imposed a wider lockdown requiring people to stay at home except for essential shopping, exercise and work ‘if absolutely necessary’ from 23 March. It wasn’t until 15 June that non-essential stores were allowed to reopen, followed by pubs, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers on 4 July.

The Premier League and EFL Championship resumed behind closed doors on 17 and 20 June and were completed on 26 July and 4 August. However, clubs in League One, League Two and all four Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) divisions elected not to return without crowds and final positions in each were decided on an average points per game basis.

The 2020-21 seasons began (again behind closed doors) on the weekend of 11 September in England, while in Scotland the Premiership got underway on 4 August and the leagues below it started shortened seasons as a money-saving measure on the weekend of 16 October.

By this time it had become clear that the UK was at the start of a second wave of COVID-19 infections and social-distancing measures were intensified, followed by further lockdowns in England and Wales during October and November and new tiers of restrictions in Scotland.

There was a brief period of relaxation in December 2020 during which crowds of up to 4,000 were permitted in stadiums in some areas but this proved short-lived and as case numbers continued to increase all four nations tightened restrictions in January 2021, effectively leading to a full UK-wide lockdown.

On 22 February, Boris Johnson announced the roadmap to an easing of restrictions in England, starting with the reopening of schools on 8 March, followed by easing of restrictions on outdoor gatherings on 29 March and with an objective of ending all restrictions by 21 June. Football stadiums are among the venues scheduled to reopen from 17 May (following some test events in April), which will allow the final rounds of the 2020-21 season to be played in front of crowds of up to 10,000 people.

The roadmap depends heavily on the continuing successful roll-out of the UK’s vaccination programme, which started on 8 December, 2020 after first the Pfizer-BioNTech and then the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines were licensed for use. More than 30m people had received at least one dose by the end of March 2021 and the government aims to offer the vaccine to all adults by 31 July.

Mintel’s core assumptions on the path of the pandemic had always included an expectation of severe disruption to markets and consumers’ lifestyles well into 2021, with a strong likelihood that the virus would still be with us even into 2022. Although the second wave of infections and subsequent lockdown puts us towards the negative end of our initial expectations, these developments are still broadly consistent with our previous assumptions.

Similarly, Mintel had factored in the likelihood that an effective vaccine would be available from early- to mid-2021. The licensing of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines puts us slightly ahead of that assumption, but the challenge associated with rolling out a new vaccination programme to millions of people means that our previous assumptions are still broadly consistent with the new reality.

Mintel’s economic assumptions are based on the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s central scenario included in its March 2021 Fiscal Sustainability Report. After the fall of 9.9% over the course of 2020, the scenario suggests that UK gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 4% in 2021, and 7.3% in 2022.

GDP isn’t expected to return to pre-COVID levels until the second quarter of 2022, although this is six months earlier than the OBR forecast in November 2020, mainly because of the faster than expected roll-out of vaccines.

Unemployment is expected to peak at 6.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021. As with GDP, this is more positive than the OBR’s November forecast, but the OBR does raise the prospect of long-term scarring on employment, especially in the more exposed retail and hospitality sectors.

This Report looks at professional football in the UK, quantifying admissions by volume and value, and examining other revenue sources, such as sponsorship and broadcasting rights fees.

Its main focus is English professional league football and the Premier League in particular, although it also includes discussion of and data on the EFL and other competitions (domestic and European) where appropriate.

The Report draws on information gathered by Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, which is sourced where shown.