Shirt sales

Manchester United and Real Madrid have sold an average of 1.4m official replica shirts globally each year in the past five years – more than any other clubs in the world.

The commercial giants of English and Spanish football wear kits made respectively by Nike and adidas and those sales numbers are from the 2007-08 season to the 2011-12 season inclusive.

The figures are taken from authoritative new research by a leading international sports marketing consultancy, and are published in full by Sportingintelligence for the first time today.

As the graphic below shows, Barcelona are No3 on the sales list (Nike, average 1.15m sales a year) followed by Chelsea in fourth place (adidas, 910,000).

The top 10 also includes Bayern Munich (adidas), Liverpool (adidas during the research period, now Warrior), Arsenal (Nike), Juventus (Nike), Inter Milan (Nike) and Milan (adidas).

Another article elsewhere on this site today (linked here) explores the value of football shirt income to the clubs, and to the major brands.

Chelsea are the most significant ‘climbers’ since detailed market statistics were last published by this site two years ago. They were adidas’s joint-second best sellers with Liverpool and Bayern Munich two years ago but have moved clear into second place for adidas – and fourth overall – now.

Undoubtedly there was a 2011-12 uplift because of success in the Champions League.

(See the top 10 and equivalent data from a report in 2010 here).

The figures have been compiled by veteran analyst Dr Peter Rohlmann and his team at the consulting bureau, PR Marketing , who have worked as consultants to major brands, leagues and other organisations.

Resized to 90% (was 640 x 722) - Click image to enlarge


There is a misconception in some quarters that big clubs sell tens of millions of shirts a year but this is simply untrue. As the graphic shows, only three clubs sell more than 1m shirts a year each consistently. The figures do not include counterfeit merchandise.

Taking the five-year view of sales is considered a more reliable indicator of sustainable popularity than one-season snapshots, which hold the likelihood of peaks and troughs caused by individual trophy wins, player transfers or the release of new kits.

As the notes at the foot of the graphic show, Rohlmann has provided a ‘bracket’ of sales for each club for the 2011-12 season alone. Real Madrid and United both sold more than 1.5m shirts in the year.

The official Manchester United Investor Relations website says that “over five million items of Manchester United branded licensed products were sold in the last year, including over two million Manchester United jerseys”.

But it is unclear exactly what period ‘last year’ refers to – possibly a 12-month period including part of two summer transfer windows – the period when shirts traditionally sell in greatest volumes.

Dr Rohlmann says that for 40 per cent of all United merchandise to be shirts “is extremely high compared to other top European football clubs” and is “outstanding” if for a single 12-month period. There is also no clarity on the United website over whether ‘jersey’ means football kit shirts or all United shirts, T-shirts and other tops.

Barcelona and Bayern sold between 1m and 1.5m replica kit shirts each in 2011-12, when Bayern reached the Champions League final, played in their own stadium in the home city. Chelsea and Arsenal sold between 750,000 and 1m shirts each while Liverpool sold fewer than their five-year average.

Premier League winners Manchester City sold somewhere just over 250,000, but their five-year average is 175,000 per year – sufficient only to place them 17th in Europe.

Rohlmann says: “Clubs from the last Champions League final saw an increase in shirt sales. Changes of kit supplier and sporting success – as well as global appeal and international presence – are the main reasons for shirt sales.”

In terms of overall merchandise sales – the sale of shirts plus other kit, including boots, tracksuits and other clothing, bags and even club-branded balls (not covered in this research) – it is understood that Manchester United and Liverpool remain the two biggest global sellers, outselling their Spanish rivals.

For shirt sales at other ‘big’ clubs outside the top 10, the following information, first published two years ago, still applies:

Dr Rohlmann’s research focussed on the clubs within the major leagues of Europe but also looked at big clubs in small leagues to see how they fare. None of those clubs would, over an extended period of time, match the sales of the top 10 listed today.

The biggest clubs in Turkey, namely Galatasaray and Fenerbahce would sell numbers at the lower end of the 10 in good years but sales of official merchandise in some regions, including Turkey and especially Asia, tend to be damaged by cheaper counterfeit goods.

A “big” club like Ajax in a “small” league like the Dutch league might expect to sell 100,000 shirts and probably fewer in most seasons. Celtic (a Nike club) are believed to be the biggest sellers among Scotland’s clubs, with “good year” sales at the lower end of the top 10, ie: several hundred thousand per year, many of them overseas in North America, Canada and Australia.

 

Some good reading in there and very good to be quoted as big sellers overseas.

There seem to be very little we can do wrong at this moment in time

 

A large percentage of those shirt sales will just be tourists visiting big cities, such as London and Madrid. Take it back home as a souvenir and never wear it again. These clubs have very few die hard fans, in all honesty, fans who would support them through thick and thin.

 

I think 75% of the people wearing team merchandise in Brussels are wearing something Barca-related. * ridiculous.

 

A lot of the "big teams" shirt sales will come from Kids. When I was younger I had tops from loads of teams Man U, Liverpool, Milan, Inter, Juventus, Ajax, Barca, Real, Valencia, Dortmund, Brazil, Ireland, Argentina.... I even had an England top :smiley-laughing002: although someone gave me it, I wore it once and then gave it to an English boy when I was on holiday.

 

It depresses me to see Chelsea as the fourth biggest shirt sellers worldwide. It just goes to show how many glory hunters there are out there.

 

Chelsea I think have smarlty dipped into a lot of markets player wise.

Africans worldwide probably buy more Chelsea shirts than any other team as over the last 10 years or that theyve had Desailly, Mikel, Essien, Makelele, Babayaro, Kalou, Geremi, Moses and Drogba and must have attracted a lot of African "fans".

Also in the late 90s they probably got good attention from Italian fans with Vialli, Di Matteo and Zola. From Holland theyve had Gullit, Hasselbaink and Robben, France Makelele, Lebouef, Desailly, Malouda, Anelka etc theyre probably popular in Russia with Abramovich being there plus theyve had a couple of Russians Kharine, Smertin and Zhirkov. Germany and Ukraines biggest stars of the last 15 years Shevchenko and Ballack played for them, from Argentina theyve had Veron and Crespo, lately theyve had a good few Brazilians, Alex, Luiz, Ramires and Oscar plus now they have the Spanish Mata, Torres, Romelu and Cesar. They had the portuguese links with Mourinho, Deco, Carvalho, Ferreira, Hilario, Villas Boas and also star players from Serbia and Czech Republic - Ivanovic and Cech. Even now they are probably quite big in Belgium with Hazard, Lukaku, De Bruyne and Courtois.

Chelsea are probably massive in Africa, Europe and South America. I bet they could get in amongst the top 3 if they had an Asian/Mexican or American or 2. Man U id guess would be the leaders in the North American and Asian markets.

Just looked up and a few more players like Gronkjaer of Denmark, Flo of Norway, Poyet of Uruguay, Stanic of Croatia, Forsell of Finland, Duff of Ireland, Gudjohnsen of Iceland, Petrescu of Romania. They seem to have had a star player from a lot of European countries.

George Weah had a spell at them too.

 

Theyve had alot of success in their 8 year history tbf.

 

Pretty poor by United, given the claim of 600m fans worldwide, although I dont know any fans, over the age of ten, who wear a shirt, strange

 

600m, my * hole

 

This. Hardly anyone supported them until recently. It's downright bizarre.

 

If United had as many fans as that, each one could donate a pound, and that'd be their debts taken care of.

But they don't...so don't pull stuff out of yer *. :smiley-laughing002:

 

What percentage of the total price of a shirt goes to the club?

(Obviously this will depend on where it's bought: if anyone has any figures for the proportion Celtic receives when selling a shirt via a Celtic shop or the website as well as a third party retailer or Sports Direct-style website, the greater the detail the better.)

 

Celtic get 100% of the profits from the sale of stuff from all our own stores and website unless it charity things for example the recent Thai Tims scarves 100% of the profits went to them and like ex-players books they probably get most from that but from the clothes and Celtics own stuff Celtic keep all the profits.

Id guess the Club will make about £25 from each top sold from a Celtic shop and about £2 from one sold from somewhere else. Its probably also the reason Celtic have to sell the kits at a higher price than other sports shops because it'll be part of the deal with Nike, as Nike need to make their money from the sale of the kits outside Celtic stores.

 

Living in the US as I do now buying pretty much every shirt is one of the ways for me to stay connected to the club.

 

That discrepancy is scandalous. Only two quid for a shirt that sells in general retail for upwards of £40? That means that if the club sells 100,000 shirts via a Celtic shop it makes £2.5m but if it sells 100,000 shirts via a third party retailer it only makes £200,000. I'm shocked and appalled.

I'm so glad we have a Celtic shop in Derry.

 

Im just guessing but its probably something close to those figures.

Remember Nike give us £5million a year to produce our stuff though.