Daniel Levy has revealed that an increased capacity stadium has been ‘critical’ to driving revenues at Spurs as Newcastle United look to one day expand St James’ Park.

Newcastle are currently carrying out a stadium feasibility study to see what could be possible with the help of a number of world-leading architectural experts. The hierarchy’s preference is to stay at St James’, if possible, with CEO Darren Eales pointing out last month that an expansion would ‘give us an opportunity to grow match day revenues by virtue of having more people in the stadium’.

Newcastle, who are also currently building a fan zone on site, still boast the seventh biggest arena in the Premier League but Spurs, West Ham, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City have all leapfrogged the Magpies since St James’ was last expanded to its current 52,000-plus capacity in 2000. Although Spurs opted to construct a new home on the site of the old White Hart Lane, which was a much smaller stadium, Levy shared the same ultimate aim as Newcastle chiefs.

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“We had been operating with one of the smallest stadia in the Premier League and, consequently, lower match day revenues in what is a fiercely competitive environment,” the Spurs chairman told the Financial Times. “An increased capacity stadium was critical to meeting demand from fans unable to get access…and driving greater match day and non-match day revenues to reinvest in the football side.”

Spurs are reaping the benefits. In their first full season with fans in their new home, following the height of the pandemic, the Londoners made £106.1m in match receipts in 2021-22 despite only playing a handful of poorly attended home games in the Europa Conference League. This figure was more than double the £45.3m that Spurs banked in their final season at White Hart Lane.

Commercial revenue also increased by 20% year-on-year to £183.5m in Spurs’ most recent set of accounts with the club noting how this period marked the ‘start of new major events being hosted at the stadium throughout the year’. The stadium has held a world heavyweight boxing bout between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk; NFL and rugby games; and concerts from Beyonce and Lady Gaga in the last two-and-a-half years alone.

Newcastle, in contrast, took home £43.9m in commercial revenue last season while the club’s match income stood at £37.9m despite both figures shooting up by 66% and 38% respectively compared to the previous financial period.