On Sunday the battle for Pep Guardiola and his treble winners moves to the Emirates for an early season skirmish to savour against Arsenal. But Manchester City are a club with their eyes on a bigger global prize.
City have designs on becoming the biggest club in the world and as they chase down a fourth successive Premier League title there are signs that mission is starting to bear fruit.
i can reveal shirt sales in key global markets in North America and Asia have boomed since the club’s Champions League win. And a leading industry figure has told us that the triumph in Istanbul means City are “almost there” in their ambition to match Barcelona, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United for brand recognition across the world.
European success has certainly had an immediate impact on the club’s bottom line. Between the months of June and August, retail sales – of which shirt sales make up the vast majority – were up 108 per cent on the same period last year.
Shirt and retail sales were also up 90 per cent across the whole of the 2022-23 season compared to the year before, which insiders have put down to a combination of signing Erling Haaland and the treble win. Brisk sales of a special Champions League winning edition of the kit, along with a limited run of a specially designed Chinese New Year strip, also helped.
Dig into the numbers and a couple more stats stick out: shirt and retail sales in South Korea soared 325 per cent over June and August. It was 485 per cent for Japan.
Success is the biggest driver but the club have been cute, too. As soon as the Champions League trophy returned to Manchester, someone in the club’s commercial department hatched a plan to have club legends take it back out on tour to draw in international fans.
The club’s treble trophy tour has attracted crowds as it racks up the air miles. It was in Jakarta last week, India earlier in September and will be flown to Australia, Argentina and the US before the year’s out.
“I don’t think people quite realise the passion there is for the Premier League in some of these places yet – or the knowledge of the global fans,” one club insider says. The team were mobbed when they flew into South Korea in the summer. While Haaland obviously draws crowds wherever he goes, Jack Grealish and Kevin De Bruyne are both “huge in Asia” too.
Nuria Tarre, chief marketing and fan experience officer at City Football Group, says connecting with worldwide fans has been key to driving global growth.
“Our fans are at the heart of everything we do – whether they are in Manchester or worldwide – and we’re also aware that a large majority of our global fanbase may never be able to travel to Manchester to visit the Etihad Stadium and experience a match in person,” she said.
“It’s therefore important for us to continually explore new ways for them to connect with the club they love.”
Catching United, Liverpool or Real Madrid seemed like a pipe dream 15 years ago, before the club’s takeover by Abu Dhabi. But in June industry leaders Brand Finance named them the most valuable brand in football for the first time, worth an eye-watering £1.3bn.
“Winning the treble makes it less surprising that they’re a strong brand but a lot of things that some fans say about them – that they’re not a real club, it’s all artificial and we don’t respect them – just don’t ring true,” Hugo Hensley, the Head of Sports Services at Brand Finance, tells i.
“They’re seen as very strong, innovative, they’ve got star players that people follow and they’re also much more followed than they were. And, of course, they’re successful.”
The report says brand value is boosted by their huge sponsorship revenues, which is where it gets a bit more complicated. Hanging over City are 115 Financial Fair Play (FFP) breaches, many of which centre around artificially inflating sponsorship and commercial deals. The club vigorously deny those charges, insisting they are entirely innocent.
Hensley warns, though, that they pose an existential threat to City’s growing brand value if proven. “They’ve obviously got these outstanding charges against them,” he says.
“If sponsorship revenue was not deemed to be brand driven at all and instead driven by the ownership it would lower the brand revenue. It would also damage the strength of the brand. If people saw it as less trustworthy, innovative or any of the other attributes sponsors come along and pay a lot of money to be associated with, it would have an impact.
“Sporting sanctions, fines, loss of revenue due to loss of sponsors and contracts, they would all have a big impact. You can imagine, for example, if you’re a bank or financial institution that you might not want to be associated with false reporting.”
City, though, are showing no let up. “Business as normal,” was how one insider described it to i last year after news of the charges broke.
Significant stadium expansion plans were announced earlier this year while the club’s transfer market plans continue apace. Paris Saint Germain’s Xavi Simons, on loan at RB Leipzig, is understood to be on their radar. The winger is only 20, a sign that they are looking to the long term.
The intention, too, is to extend Haaland’s contract to cement their the future of their star man. It would be no surprise if Guardiola followed suit and stayed beyond 2025 too.
“Who knows how big we’ll be in a few years time,” one insider said. The Blue Moon continues to rise over the global game.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/EqhmlTn
Post a Comment