Everton’s Aaron Duckmanton: Life as a Premier League club Chief Revenue Officer

0:03David Cushnan:And welcome along to the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast, the sports industry show from Leaders where we talk to the people worth knowing in the business of sport this week. I am David Cushnan, content director round here at Leaders, and we are in the Premier League today with what I suppose is a relatively rare extended sit down with a Premier League club chief revenue officer. The Club is Everton and the executive in question is Aaron Duckmanton. Aaron has the title Chief Revenue Officer and it's part of a really quite fascinating org structure at Everton underneath CEO Angus Kinnear. Aaron, as you will hear, has a remit that includes marketing, ticketing, non-match day events, international, while his colleague Mark Rollings, Chief Partnership Officer, handles perhaps the more traditional sponsorship side of things at the club.

0:57David Cushnan:It's a pretty fascinating commercial pincer movement as Everton's relatively new owners, the Friedkin Group, bed in following their takeover at the end of 2024. Aaron Duckmanton himself has plenty of Premier League experience over the past five years or so. Stints at Leeds, where he ran digital marketing and content, and then marketing and retail. And at Crystal Palace, where he was CMO, preceded this current role at Everton. He joined the club in March last year and that was at a particularly exciting and in its own way challenging moment in the club's proud history. That's a history that includes nine English Football League titles, the last of which all the way back in 1986-87.

1:40David Cushnan:One of only six clubs to have played in every Premier League season since 1992, Everton made the big move physically and spiritually to a brand new stadium in the summer of 2025, moving the men's team from historic Goodison Park to the shiny new Hill Dickinson Stadium and relocating the women's team to Goodison Park in the process. And that is a transition that has opened up, as you will hear, all sorts of new commercial opportunities. Aaron and I sat down just before the first game of the new Premier League season a couple of weeks back and I think it's a good listen that you will enjoy. His wide-ranging thoughts on the club, the Premier League's status internationally, how he thinks about fans of all types, turning a new stadium into a home for football and all sorts of other sports and entertainment events and plenty more besides.

2:34David Cushnan:So here is the Chief Revenue Officer at Everton Football Club, Aaron Duckmanton.

2:42David Cushnan:Aaron Duckmanton, the Chief Revenue Officer at Everton Football Club, is with me. Hi, Aaron. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. Now, should we do some full disclosure? Is it appropriate to say that we are recording this in Manchester? I think so. I was wondering how I was going to tackle that, but yes. I think get it out of the way. Get it out of the way. We're not in Liverpool right now. We are in Manchester. We're not, but we are here to talk about all things Everton. And we're talking, of course, at the start of another busy Premier League season, as I'm sure you will tell me about. But first of all, really interested in your particular role, Chief Revenue Officer.

3:23David Cushnan:Tell us a little bit about how you've got to there and what that role entails, because I understand actually within the Everton structure, maybe slightly different than people might expect. Yeah, for sure. I think people who've been to a Leeds a bit before will have seen it with three different badges in three different years from three different Premier League football clubs, which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing. But yeah, previously at Leeds United for four years as the marketing director and head of retail, moved to Crystal Palace to join it with Steve Parrish and was their chief marketing officer and then made the move just when the stadium opened to Everton to be the chief revenue officer and rejoin my old CEO, Angus Kinnear.

4:05David Cushnan:And tell us a little bit about that CRO role as it sits within Everton's structure, because you were sharing with me a little bit of what it covers and it's a lot. It is. So my role is essentially to manage and grow our controllable revenue line. So controllable meaning nothing that is competition prize money or player trading or the big buckets that the clubs have. So my role sits into ticketing, premium ticketing, conference events, major in bowl events, retail, international tours, anything really that is non-partnership focused. And I say that because we have a fantastic chief partnerships officer in Mark Rollins and him, his team, look after all of our sponsors, partnerships and activations and have done a tremendous job over the last 24 years in onboarding and growing our portfolio as we moved into Hill Dickinson Stadium.

4:58But anything that's a more traditional football stadium-based marketing or revenue line sits with myself.

5:04David Cushnan:Which is, as we will come on to talk about, quite a lot. And I'm sure your inbox is overflowing with stuff. Flagged emails. Tell us a little bit about the summer that you, the club, have been through. Obviously, the football world dominated by the World Cup, which does have an impact, of course, on what you as clubs can and can't do, I suppose. How do you assess the last few weeks? It's been a really busy summer for the football club and for the stadium. So first summer since we opened, first non-match day summer. So when we look at Hill Dickinson, it's not just a football stadium. It is primarily a football stadium, is the home of Everton Football Club.

5:46But for us, maximizing its use 365, maximizing its availability and use through the summer is incredibly important for us. And is probably my primary objective at this moment. So it was our first summer and we managed to fill a sporting calendar, which was great for us. So we started at the back end of the year. We had the Lionesses come and have to have the FA bring their party into town and to continue our shared vision of growth of women's football. Obviously, we moved our women's team into Goodison Park. So to have that as a big celebration of 30 ,000 in the crowd. we had over 180 former lionesses former everton women all join us on the day um so really great great spectacle for for the sport and for the stadium um and then that rolled into a record breaking magic weekend so we had the rugby league come in um 78 000 across two days in the stadium for for magic um tremendous event you know first real showpiece for us to do this summer and then that piggybacked into us having the England-Fiji game, so Fiji home game.

6:52So we welcomed Fiji and their traveling party to the stadium, which was incredibly exciting for us. But to have the England Rugby Union team play outside of Twickenham is something that doesn't happen very often. So to have 50 ,000 in for the stadium for that was another monumental event for the stadium. And then we rolled that into, which is probably one of the more unique events of the summer, we turned our stadium into a nine-hole golf course to coincide with the Open, being in Liverpool. So we had another 5 ,000 people play golf in the stadium, which led us into a very busy non-football window of events, gave us just enough time to turn the pitch around.

7:33And then we're back into pre-season and we played Lille last week and now we're ready for the first game of the season.

7:38David Cushnan:It's been a whirlwind and we've seen all of those events go into the new stadium. tell us a little bit about the the overarching vision for for non-match day at the hill dickinson because you've got this incredible new toy to play with that you want to make sure is as full and and as used um as many of the 365 days of the year as you can tell us a little bit about the the ambition and the strategy that's sort of underpinning all of that yeah i think most people look at a summer and immediately assume concerts um which is also our vision um we we're really excited about the prospect of what we're going to do with hill dickinson as a concert venue um over the coming years um we the stadium you know was built and was opened pretty quickly um and that gave the the previous regime to have the time or the confidence to go and book music events for that summer so last year was around sort of what was available and what we could put into there but in terms of the vision for the stadium when we talk about 365 venues and it's a term that's often probably overused I think it's quite hard to run something every single day at that stadium but for us having a way to have you know eight to ten major events at the stadium throughout the year combined with our conference events programming or our external programming that we do with it we think we can probably have you know anywhere of 30 to 40 events that run at the stadium, which for us in a world of revenue being king in the football landscape, it just allows us to separate ourselves and really start to distinguish Everton and provide Everton and the football team a competitive advantage against our set when it comes to revenue generation.

9:23David Cushnan:The concert thing is really interesting. Obviously, there are lots of stadiums across the UK and well beyond that are looking increasingly, I think, at hosting the biggest live acts in the music space. What are you learning about the lead time, that world, the music industry and how the live touring business works? Oh, how long have you got? I think it's been, since moving into the role, it's probably been the biggest learning curve that we've had or that I've had certainly is understanding how promoters work, understanding where and how events are booked and how they're rooted and what other acts are available.

10:01It's not as simple as someone calls you up and said, I've got Beyonce. Are you free next Saturday? You're working on 18-month, 24-month lead times. To be clear, you would take that call.

10:12David Cushnan:I would take that call. I would. No, she wants to play up front for us on Saturday. I think we can make it work. But no, it's quite difficult to ensure that all calendars are aligned. And that's stadium availability. It's act availability. It's getting licensing and approval from the councils, the local authorities, the transport the police they're really big shows to undertake so we've we've spent the past or I've spent the past 10 months speaking to every promoter having stadium visits having site visits and we're at the point now where I'm really excited about what we will do in that space going forward Tell us give us your overall assessment of the the stadium one year in because it's it's just about the biggest change any Premier League club can go through I suppose short of being relegated I suppose a completely new stadium, a completely new home, and you've got the physical and the technical and the practical and the logistical aspects, but you've also got the journey that you've got to take fans and partners and staff, I guess, on to get everybody in there working as one and sort of, believing is probably the wrong word, but believing in this as the new home of Everton.

11:27Yeah, I think having been through a relegation and a stadium move, I can tell you one is remarkably more excitable than the other. I think when you move stadium, it's a flag in the ground. It's the biggest catalyst for change that a football club can go through. And top line, Everton and when we're at Goodison, we would have always fallen in the bottom third of revenue. And that's just not sustainable in today's Premier League. So the move to Hill Dickinson would immediately put us seventh or eighth in the league table in terms of controllable revenues. So that change, that step change that is made for the football club from a revenue point of view is just undeniable.

12:06And that's why we did it. Goodison is a historic football ground. It's not just a landmark for Everton fans or the city of Liverpool. You can throw a stone in the sports industry and some will have you a story to tell about a time they visited Goodison. and it's really special and I'm really glad that we've managed to keep Goodison as a football ground for the women's team but when it comes to our move to the stadium I think the point around getting people to buy into it I think they just had to turn up for the first time it's for those who haven't been it's a stunning stadium I genuinely think it's up there with the best stadium in Europe and when you walk into the grounds it's on the River Mersey it's surrounded by three sides of water it's kept it's retaining dock wall that's your point of entry into it so it's a real striking striking striking stadium and when you walk through those gates you just immediately feel that there's been a step change from Goodison Park through Till Dickinson um so it's been a journey for for us all to get to the point of it being a you know a stadium that is now you know widely considered one of the best in Europe but for fans and for staff who were so emotionally connected to Goodison it was it was a journey that probably took three years it predated me the move and And what the staff and what the team did really well was, you know, migrating 30 ,000 season ticket holders from Goodison to Hill Dickinson is a big challenge.

13:25We increased our number to 35 ,000, but that process was done with real care and attention. They mapped every single fan who currently was at Goodison into what they thought their desired seat would be at Hill Dickinson. We broke this down into nine phases. So it allowed people the time and the due course and care to come and select their seat. So we took them into virtual showrooms. we explained to them how the atmosphere of the lower Gladys or the upper Bullings would be similar in certain parts of the stadium. So I think where some stadium moves have fallen down in those first three or six months of opening is when fans haven't felt like they were part of the journey.

14:02And I think testament to everyone at the football club, they really made the fan base feel that they were moving with the club and moving with the team from Goodison to Hill Dickinson. So that really allowed us to open with a bang. And I think we also said farewell to Goodison in the right way. I think the final game, 3-0 win at Southampton, a lot of fanfare, all the players, everyone has made Goodison special over those years, all on the pitch. It meant that there was no hangover. And I think that's also that's important when you move from a stadium is if you say farewell to your home, what has been your home in the right way, everyone can only look forward to the exciting future that is at Hill Dickinson.

14:40So I think we've handled it very well. I think all the fans now who've been, had a year with us, can understand why. I think they're very proud of it as a stadium. I think they look at it as an envious stadium that most football clubs come to and away fans come to now and get to see what we have. So I think where we're at now heading into year two in terms of fan sentiment, there's been some teething issues. Of course, there's been some teething issues, but I think everyone's really positive about the move and the matchday norms have sort of settled back into it. The routines, you know, you know who sat to the left of you, you know who sat to the right of you.

15:16So I think Emma's really excited about year two at Hill Dickinson.

15:19David Cushnan:What's it been like working with the folks at Hill Dickinson? Because I think that was a stadium naming rights deal that when it sort of popped into inboxes and popped up in headlines, I think a lot of people sort of raised an eyebrow. Who are these people and what are they doing? It quickly became clear that there's a real local connection what sort of partners have they been? Yeah, great. I mean, who would have thought that your naming rights partner would have been two doors down from your offices? It's very helpful. The team spent, you know, two, three years in market looking, and it turned out the answer was literally right in front of you.

15:56They're a fantastic partner. I mean, they really care about the city. I mean, they're a global law firm. They're one of the largest law firms in the world, but they have a real affinity and tie to the city of Liverpool and that area particularly of where Hildikson is on Bramley Moor Dock. So for them to take the position and trust us with their brand and trust us with their name and their entry into football was really special. Partnership has got off to a great start. I think they're now the most searched law firm in the past 12 months, which shows the impact they can have. I was speaking to their managing director and the introductions and the sort of company and clients that they're now speaking to are telling them that their children are now referring to Hill Dickinson because they're playing on EA.

16:40And that's sort of way into Hill Dickinson that they never thought they would have. So they're a great partner. They've been incredibly collaborative with us in terms of coming on the journey with us in the stadium and understanding that they came in, you know, two months before the stadium was due to open. So there was always going to be some, you know, a learning curve and an onboarding curve. But they've been great. And honestly, I work with some great partners in my time of football and Hill Dickinson are right up there.

17:05David Cushnan:Must be some incredible name recognition metrics knocking about for Hill Dickinson just on, you know, in season one. um beyond the ability to sell partnerships in and around the stadium itself what what has the very fact that Everton have a new stadium done from a commercial from a marketing point of view you talked about sort of moving up the rankings in terms of um I guess potential and commercial potential what does that look and feel like in practice what are the conversations you're maybe be able to have now that you weren't, you know, or the club weren't two or three years ago? Yeah, I think if you look at the partner portfolio we have, some partners have taken positions with the stadium, not necessarily the football club.

17:57So when you've built a destination, when you've built a venue that's going to host the Euros and is going to host, you know, major acts and is going to host the rugby and is going to host England games, you start to get the attention of global brands who you know don't struggle for awareness that their entry into the premier league doesn't need to be on kit um so but they want to activate they want to activate on the biggest stage in the biggest moments so you know we've been able to bring in AB InBev and Budweiser and Pepsi as two stadium partners not necessarily Everton club partners so they're they're supply lines that most football clubs would take as a supply deal but we've been able to take them as marketing deals because of the stature of the stadium.

18:37In terms of how we can market it and what it allows us to do, we've talked about our event programming, but it's also our own and operated events. So we will be one of the most booked conference and events destinations in the city of Liverpool by the end of this year, which is something that when you're at Goodison or you're at a stadium that doesn't have the facilities, you just can't be. So our ability to broaden outside of, you know, we talk, the focus will always be on major events on football, but our day-to-day operation of meeting rooms and bookings and conferences is busy. It also allows us to be really creative with how we use the stadium ourselves.

19:12So we've got a Oktoberfest event coming up, which is sold out, sold out in two days. We've got a drive-through cinema. So we've got movies on the Mersey using our car park and the stadium is a backdrop. We'll have a Christmas spectacular. We'll have Halloween. We'll have a fireworks display. So what it allows the team to do is really start to think outside of just 90 minutes on a Saturday or 19 home Premier League games as a way to keep the stadium busy, promote the club and our partners and our portfolio, but also continue to drive revenue. And at the heart of this is that revenue growth. We have a very simple ethos at the football club and Angus sets it to everybody.

19:52And it's a virtual circle of of win football matches, generate revenue, and make Everton fans happy. And all three of those things just play into each other. So whether you are in our marketing team or whether you're a football scout or whether you are in the conference events team, you always know that everything you're doing is geared to winning football matches. And by winning football matches, we'll grow our revenues, we'll grow our revenues, we'll make fans happy.

20:16David Cushnan:And it just continues to go around. Welcome to the conference game. It's all glamour. It's all glamour over here. Expecting your booking for 2028, I think. I'll speak to my people. Tell us a little bit about, I mean, you mentioned Angus sort of setting the tone there and you obviously have worked with Angus previously. And you talked about Mark in the chief partnerships officer role. and I presume that's a sort of triangular relationship that needs to work in lockstep because you're you know there's there's all sorts of sort of overlap potential in those roles what does that look like in practice and it actually sounds like the kind of model that maybe is a potential model for other clubs I love the model it was a model that I bought into when I joined the club um it was it was laid out very clear how angus wanted to to run the commercial department or the revenue generative department um how i've described it before is we live in a giant house and i have the top half of the house and mark has the bottom half of the house but we both eat dinner together and i think that's how it works i think when you look at the the journey that our partnerships team under mark has been on to onboard you know a naming rights partner and in front of shirt a sleeve stadium founding partners you look at the journey that i've been to bring major sporting events and conferences and concerts and that relationship with promoters, it would have been impossible for one person to have done both of those.

21:44And I've worked at football clubs before where if one person oversees it all, often not everything gets done. And you don't want a single point of failure. So by having two really strong commercial leaders focused on two huge areas, it just works. and it's a sort of setup that I think really only works when you've got a stadium. I think that it's not, I've been at football clubs, you know, Leeds and Crystal Palace where the ability to program the stadium is not quite there, but the partnership side of it and ticketing and hospitality is so important that one person can oversee that. But when you've got, as you described it, a big shiny toy and you've got 52 ,000 seats to sell for every game and you've got the ability to go eight weeks in the summer, coupled with incredibly ambitious targets for partnerships, having two people do it just makes total sense.

22:37David Cushnan:I wonder what, and this is probably more Mark's area, but you do have a new front of shirt partner this year in CMC markets who have come on board. And obviously this has been a summer or actually a season or two where across the league, Premier League clubs have been preparing for a world without betting partners on the front of shirts, this sort of self-imposed ban that the league and the clubs have moved forward with. Coming into effect now, seems like actually pretty much across the board that the league has done very well. I wonder what your overall assessment has been of how, not just Everton, but the Premier League in general, you've worked in several clubs, have sort of tackled a, you know self-inflicted but for very very good reason but nevertheless a challenge.

23:29Yeah I think it's probably been the biggest topic of conversation for the past 24 months. I think when it was coming I think it's arguably one of the biggest changes to football since the Taylor report in terms of how clubs would have had to adjust and change and adapt and I think on a whole now, two days before the Premier League starts, I think clubs will be satisfied. I think some clubs won't necessarily be happy and I think some ownership groups might not be as happy. But I think on a whole, I think there was around about 40 or 15 on-kit assets if you can come to leave and train in where they were available.

24:07So it was a tough summer across the league for a lot of partnerships teams and commercial teams to navigate through. I'm sure there'll be war wounds from everyone across the industry that will be told and discussed at Leaders Week. But I think when you look at it now, there's probably one team heading into this weekend without a front-of-shirt partner. Some have been done, some have been last cab off the rank and they might have done well for being last cab off the rank. You had some who went early and just got the number and got a partner and wanted to be out of that to focus on other areas. From a club side, we're really happy with the partner that we've brought on board.

24:41another similar Till Dickinson, a partner that really wants to invest in the club and the success of the club and be part of the journey. So I can only speak for us, we're really happy with where we ended up.

24:52David Cushnan:Seems to me one of the other big trends, the Premier League trends going into this new season is this sort of continuing insatiable appetite for clubs to, and the league itself actually to to crack or continue to crack america as a market and obviously we've we've seen a well i don't know if you heard the world cup was in uh it was in the us in the summer um and mexico and canada but um i wonder what what's the what's the everton approach you've obviously got ownership from the US these days. What is the approach? What's the vision? And I suppose what does the journey towards wherever you want to get to looking like at the moment?

25:41I think of all of the topics of conversation that football clubs have, the US or international as a more broader topic is probably the one that will take up the most day of time without anyone having a definitive answer. And if anyone does have a definitive answer, please email me or call me and tell me what it is. I think it's that question of, you know, what are we doing in the US? How can we grow in the US? How can we attract more US or international fans? And it's really difficult. US is a big place. And you can spend a lot of time, money and effort chasing into areas where you feel like you might have a pocket, you might have presence.

26:24and teams have and teams have pulled back because you know they've not seen the return on that it all really boils down to what what are you trying to achieve I think anyone who goes after the U.S. because it's the U.S. and football and soccer is bigger out there now and more people like it is really going to struggle I think if you go out there with the the appetite of okay we are looking to attract one or two new partners in the area fine it's really clear you know what you're after and plan around that. If it is, we know we have a fan base out there already. We know we've got 25 ,000 people in our support network across these five states.

27:02We want to go and activate with them and put something on for them so they feel part of the club. Fine. It's a great fan engagement strategy. That's the way you want to go about it. If it is more, we want to grow an audience. We want to grow a fan base. We want to be the team in Kansas or Cincinnati. It's difficult to go and do that, right? The US is a highly competitive and saturated market when it comes to sport. I think the answer or our current answer to that question is we want to make ourselves available as a football club to fans in the US. We have an incredible amount of sport clubs out in the US.