There is major financial significance in being able to shift huge amounts of official merchandise. The more gear a club can sell, the more money a manufacturer will pay to be an official kit supplier.
Chelsea confirmed their new £900m, 15-year deal with Nike last week, for example, equating to a contract worth £60m a year. United have a deal with adidas worth £75m a year, while the Spanish giants of Real and Barca both have new deals worth around £100m a year. That quartet beat everyone else by some distance.
Dr Rohlmann is a veteran analyst who has authored a number of in-depth studies into kit supply deals and sales by Europe’s elite clubs. This website carried an earlier study for the 5-year period 2007 to 2012
in October 2012 here.
By 2014, Real Madrid’s growth had edged just ahead of United’s, putting Real into the No1 spot as both clubs sold more each year, but United’s growth has taken a spurt and they are back at the top in the latest analysis. Just four clubs have had annual average sales of more than one million shirts per year over a five-year period.
It is worth noting however:
a: Dr Rohlmann counts sales of official genuine replica club shirts. Counterfeits and copies are not part of these totals. Methodology is
not always clear in other studies.
b: A five-year period of data is seen as vital to overall accuracy as most clubs’ sales will ebb and flow dependent on success and signings, although individual players are often
not as influential in sales as some claim.
c: While the replica shirt is the most obvious and visible piece of merchandise that a manufacturer will monetise from their commercial relationship with a club, there will typically be many dozens of other lines of clothing and apparel where money is made as part of the same contract. So, for example, Adidas selling almost 2 million Manchester United shirts in a year at around £50 each is far from the whole story of that company’s revenue from United. Millions of other items from shorts and socks to hats, bags, training gear, tops, coats and other accessories – often even more expensive than a shirt – are also shifted annually.
Aside from United moving back to the top spot, the other major movers in recent years have been Bayern Munich, PSG, Dortmund and Manchester City moving up the shirt sales rankings as they have returned to global prominence or gained it for the first time. The Italian giants of Milan and Inter are among the fallers as their fortunes have waned.