Do you want to be a soccer jersey Top Seller? Win the Champions League
Alejandro Panfil @AlePanfil
Being competitive and winning championships is not just a matter of raising the self-esteem of the players and the fans, though many sports documentaries try to make it seem as that is the case. Even when encouragement, mental preparation, training, talent and skills, are central to podium aspirations, it is ultimately money what makes the difference. It is crucial for the clubs to increase their income, get better in ticketing, improve the deals with their current sponsors or get new ones and, no less important, sell more jerseys.
Soccer jerseys are a quick and easy moneymaker the world over. That is why top clubs have designed marketing plans to offer a wide variety of merchandising products, especially jerseys. And in times of social network, players have become organic influencers and sellers through their official profiles.
To be a Top Seller a club needs to fulfill a number or requisites, such as signing the best players and be prepared to wear different models of jersey during the same season. But the most important feature is to be a winner team. It is good if the club wins a local title; it is better if it plays the Champions League; it is best if it wins the Champions. According to a study by the German company “Euromericas Sport Marketing”, Bayern Munich, current Champions League winner, is the European club that sold more jerseys last season, with 2.250.000. Second comes Real Madrid (Champions League winner in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018) with 2.450.000 and in the third place comes Liverpool (Champions League winner in 2019) with 2.122.000. Completing the top ten are Manchester United, Juventus, Barcelona, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint Germain and Manchester City. These numbers originated in the period August 2019-August 2020.
“The Champions League is the best platform to sell shirts and playing in that competition has become vital for the clubs”, told DROB Gerardo Molina, director of the report. The same study suggests that jerseys have become a priority for European clubs due to the drop on their income as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, even when the measurements show a slight decrease (-12%) in the consumption of this product.
Let’s take two examples of performance and organization and contrast their ability to sell their shirts. On the one hand, Bayern Munich is a millionaire club and one of the most powerful teams in the world because they are a neat organization that seems to function like a clockwork. But, surprisingly, when it comes to hiring it keeps a low profile and chooses its players with surgical precision. The team’s winning plan is based on collective game and teamwork to avoid depending on one or two stars. On the other hand, Barcelona (team that was thrashed 2-8 by Bayern in the quarterfinals of the last edition of the Champions League in Lisbon) relies on Lionel Messi’s performance to try for a good result and has done nothing but look for expensive players in every transfer window. Thus, FCB occupies number 7 in the ranking, having sold 1.440.000 jerseys. If we compare the club’s present with its recent past, we must remember it was Top Seller in 2010, 2012 and 2014, the years of its golden era that kept the tank full long enough so as to let the Catalans reach the shirt-selling podium again in 2018. The 7th positions of the 19-20 season shows the difficult moment the club is going through at almost every level of its organization. The checkered model Barça wore until the defeat against Bavarians will always be the symbol of these last pretty rough years and will probably never come back.
Beyond the more self-evident marketing strategies, selling jerseys and winning trophies are very connected. If we focus on the top 3 of this shirt sales ranking and their titles in the last season, Bayern Munich won the Champions League, UEFA Supercup, Bundesliga, German Cup and German Supercup; Real Madrid won the last Spanish league and the Spanish Supercup and Liverpool is the current winner of the World Cup Clubs and the Premier League Champion. Barcelona, on the contrary, ended the season with zero titles and justify why it is no longer as powerful as it used to be.
“Those clubs that reach the Champions League finals and those that can win, increase their level of jersey sales and that is very important for their finances”, concluded Molina, an Argentinean Advisor and a Professor in Sports Marketing.
So now you know, when you see kids all over the world showing proudly their soccer jerseys of a European club, that means the club is winning!