The clubs of the top flights in Europe's six top football nations earn an annual total of €615 million from merchandising, according to new research.
According to SPORT+MARKT and PR Marketing's European Football Merchandising Report, the 20 English FA Premier League clubs head the ranking with €171 million, equating to merchandising revenue of €8.6 million per club. The Spanish Primera División follows in second position (€145 million in total / €7.3 million per club) ahead of the German Bundesliga (€127 million in total / €7.1 million per club).
Behind French Ligue 1, Italian Serie A generates a relatively low €3.2 million on average per club from merchandising. The Dutch Eredivisie occupies last position with a total of €22 million amongst the six top flights.
According to Hartmut Zastrow, Executive Director of SPORT+MARKT, the significant factors behind successful merchandising are sporting success, the size of the domestic market, the number of domestic and international club fans and professional merchandising structures.
"High attendances at home games are key. In particular, the sale of fan merchandise at the stadium on matchdays is a significant revenue factor for many clubs” he explained. “Larger stadia and more spectators are a major benefit for successful merchandising."
The findings of SPORT+MARKT and PR Marketing also show a strong discrepancy between the merchandising income of different clubs. On average, the 116 clubs generate €5.3 million from merchandising. Whilst the 20 top clubs generate an average of €21.2 million the remaining 96 teams each earn around €2.0 million.
