Liverpool face shortfall as new contract details emerge, £400m in off-field sales needed
Posted By Joe E
May 10, 2024
4:48 pm
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The success of Liverpool’s new partnership with Adidas hinges on a staggering number of replica shirt sales.
Liverpool’s current kit manufacturer is Nike, who released the club’s 2024-25 home shirt last week.
The American sportswear giant pay the club around £30million per year for the rights to sell their shirts and other branded merchandise.
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
As reported by Sport Business, the Merseysiders are now set to leave Nike in favour of Adidas, who will pay £50m per season starting from 2025-26.
While the £20m upgrade might initially seem like a no-brainer for Liverpool’s commercial department, that is not necessarily the case
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The true value of Liverpool’s kit deal
Liverpool’s kit deal with Nike features a lower base rate in return for a greater cut of units sold – around 20 per cent.
That means the true value of the deal is substantially higher.
A recent UEFA report shows Liverpool’s 2022-23 merchandise takings stood at around £130m, and roughly £90m of that is believed to be from the Nike deal.
The new Adidas deal will also feature a cut of sales but a far more moderate one, likely to be around 10 per cent based on the industry average.
That means the German brand would need to rake in £400m in Liverpool-branded merchandise sales to match the value of the Nike deal.
That’s about 5million shirts.
Who has the most lucrative kit deal in the Premier League?
Significantly, Liverpool’s arrangement with Adidas runs for just five years until 2030.
Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images
That is in contrast to the rest of the Premier League’s so-called ‘Big Six’, who are all currently locked into deals that will have run for at least 10 years by the end of their contracts.
Below is a breakdown of the division’s most lucrative kit deals.
Tottenham – Nike, £30m per season until 2033
Chelsea – Nike, £60m per season until 2031
Arsenal – Adidas, £60m per season until 2030
Man City – Puma, £65m per season until 2029
Man United – Adidas, £90m per season until 2035
Liverpool will hope that by not being locked into an ultra-long-term agreement, they will have the freedom to negotiate a higher price in future.
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