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Then there is the income that Barca get from merchandising and match day each year. The club’s most recent accounts are from the 2018-19 season, before the COVID-19 crisis hit. That year saw them earn €60 million from merchandising, including replica jersey sales, and €93.7 million from match days — including tickets and hospitality in the stadium’s VIP areas.
“Barca have to look at all their business activities and calculate how much they will lose by not having Lionel Messi in their squad,” Menchen said. “Of the €60 million they gain each year from merchandising, how many are jerseys with Messi’s name on them? Or how many are jerseys without a name on the back that people have bought as they come to the Nou Camp for the unique experience of watching a Barca team featuring the best player in the world?”
That is again difficult to know but
Barca’s official 2018-19 accounts do give a breakdown between money that comes into the club from members (socios) and from one-off ticket buyers for each game.
Barca received €71.6 million from “normal” ticket sales for games, which was up 17.6 per cent on the previous year, when visitor numbers to the Catalan capital were affected by a terrorist attack in August 2017. They also took in €22 million from VIP and hospitality, a rise of 16 per cent on 2017-18, with Barca themselves claiming that more than 250 companies brought over 35,000 guests to the stadium to see games. Each “normal” year, they sell 900,000 tickets for games and 15,000 VIP packages.
This combined €93.6 million from match days is much higher than the €60.88 million which Barca took in from their club socios in 2018-19, of which just over €40 million was for season tickets. Overall, it means that the 900,000 one-off visitors who bought a ticket for just one game are more valuable to Barca financially than their 110,000 socio members, who are very unlikely to buy a new shirt every time they visit the stadium.
Maybe not that many socios would decide against renewing were Messi to leave but how many of the day-trippers making a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage might decide to change their destination should their favourite player now be performing elsewhere?
Barca’s kit supplier deal with Nike is not immediately under threat should Messi leave. Running from 2018-19 until 2025-26, it is worth around €155 million a year to the club — money that became more important than ever when other revenue streams shut down due to COVID-19. With Messi being an Adidas player and Barca themselves having taken a lot of their merchandising in-house in recent seasons, Nike “will not be that worried” by this week’s events, says Menchen.
A recent survey had Barcelona ranked fourth in the world when it comes to shirt sales, with just under two million sold. By contrast Real Madrid — even after Cristiano Ronaldo had left — sold just over three million. Top of the pile were Manchester United with 3.25 million, even during a 2018-19 season in which they finished sixth in the Premier League and were trophyless for a second consecutive year. More than anything, this suggests that Barca were not making the best use of having Messi in their team when it came to selling shirts, so would drop even further down the rankings without him.