A successful club knows how to be run as a successful business, meaning those in charge of the finances need to be able to strike the best deal for the club. Whether that be buying an incredibly talented player in as cheap a deal as possible or securing an incredibly lucrative sponsorship deal with some of the biggest companies in the world.
With the money spent by Manchester City and Liverpool securing their transfer targets over the summer, including Bernando Silva, Kyle Walker and Ederson, the Manchester City vs Liverpool odds make for interesting reading for their clash this weekend.
We’ve looked into some of the most lucrative sponsorship deals that the world’s best football clubs have managed to secure. The figures involved will give you an insight into how your club manages to afford some of the vast sums spent on great players.
Chelsea and Yokohama
The 2016/17 Premier League champions’ revenue was around £335 million for the 2015/16 and so the club were 8th in the world for football club revenue. The likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United were all above Chelsea in revenue, partly because those three clubs have higher stadium capacity, but also because of the sponsorship deals.
The club’s current shirt sponsor is Yokohama Rubber and the Japanese Tyre firm agreed a deal worth £200 million over five years. This deal means the club rake in around £40 million a year and this equates to around 12% of the club’s revenues
With the club is looking to redevelop Stamford Bridge in the near future the lucrative sponsorship deals will be key to financing the rebuild of the stadium.
Manchester United and Adidas
Back in 2014 Manchester United struck a £750 million deal with Adidas to have the German kit manufactures produce United’s kits for the next ten years, meaning the club would earn around £75 million a year in revenue from the deal.
The Adidas deal started at the end of the 2014/15 season and it ended a run of 23 years since last making the kit for Manchester United. In that period both Umbro and Nike has produced kits for United.
The sponsorship represents around 15% of the clubs turnover of £515 million from 2015/16 and is worth substantially more than the previous deal that United had with Nike. Both the previous Nike deal and the current Adidas deal were record breaking sponsorship deals, however this has since been surpassed by Nike’s deal with Spanish giants Barcelona.
One year of the value of this sponsorship deal would cover the initial fee spent on Romelu Lukaku in his transfer from Everton.
Manchester City and Etihad Airways
It’s not just club kits that can be sponsored, the stadium names can do, as Wigan Athletic, Newcastle United and most prominently, Manchester City have all done.
In 2011 Manchester City and Etihad Airways had negotiated a deal in which the City of Manchester Stadium that Manchester City played their home games would be renamed “The Etihad Stadium.”
The sponsorship deal will last for ten years and will make the club around £400 million meaning £40 million a year during the contract. With the club’s 2015/16 revenue sitting at around £390 million, the deal accounts for a little over 10% of their yearly revenue.
It’s the big money deals like this that have helped Man City spend big on their transfers, with over £200 million being spent on players this summer alone.
Real Madrid and Adidas
It was earlier in 2017 when Adidas and Real Madrid renewed their kit sponsorship, this meant that the current La Liga and Champions League champions will earn around £85 million per year for ten years.
It is understood that the club were also talking to American sportswear company Under Armour to negotiate a more lucrative deal to produce the club’s kit, however Under Armour were reportedly put off by Madrid’s financial demands.
A deal with a smaller income may have been in place back in the 2015/16 season, however if the revenue from that season were to remain the same today, the kit sponsorship would be a massive 18.3% of the Spanish club’s revenue.
With the money from the sponsorship, the club could effectively buy a Ronaldo for each of the seasons of the deal.
Barcelona and Nike
In the latter months of 2016 Spanish football club Barcelona and American kit manufacturers Nike agreed to an extension on the current kit deal that will now see the partnership last until 2023. The new sponsorship deal will see Barcelona make around £140 million a year from 2018.
The club had the second highest revenue in world football back in 2015/16 and this kit deal is worth roughly 30% of the club’s revenue, which at the time was around £465 million.
Considering Neymar’s transfer fee was more than one year’s revenue from the deal, it demonstrates just how far transfer fees have gone.
