According to a report published by ESPN FC, Chelsea FC currently have the second most valuable kit in the Premier League. By most valuable we don’t mean the value of the kit you wear every weekend when you go down to the pub, but value in terms of revenue generated from the kit manufacturer and the sponsor on the front of the shirt.
Leading the pack is Manchester United with an estimated annual revenue from their kits of $195m or £122m combined from Adidas and Chevrolet. The Adidas partnership began on August 1st of this year and is worth a reported $1.17 billion over 10 years or $117m every year. That astronomical figure is worth more than double what the next ranked club Bayern Munich receives every year.
United’s global appeal, especially in Asia, is incredible and is something that other clubs should aspire to. Chelsea FC is quite a bit behind them in terms of revenue but thankfully the Blues have been miles ahead on the pitch in recent years. United States-based auto manufacturer Chevrolet throws in an additional $79.9m a year for the honor of ruining what is a decent kit with their hideous gold and white logo.
Next: 2. Chelsea FC
Trailing behind the Red Devils by nearly $90 million are Chelsea FC. The Blues also received a 10 year deal from Adidas but is worth less than half of Manchester United’s current kit deal. The deal Chelsea signed with Adidas in 2013 was at that point a world record deal for a kit manufacturer but now it seems like the sportswear company made an excellent bargain for the right to supply Chelsea’s kits. United’s deal may someday give Chelsea more leverage at the bargaining table but with 8+ years left on the deal it does not appear that anything will change anytime soon.
Chelsea does also receive an additional $62.3m a year from kit sponsor Yokohama, more than double what they had been receiving from Samsung. The Yokohama deal was a great success for Chelsea and should allow them to pursue even more marketing opportunities in Asia than the Samsung deal had afforded them. Some fans do not like the logo very much but it is not quite as garish as Chevrolet’s and will grow on all of us over time.
Next: 3. Arsenal
Arsenal ranks third on the list just behind Chelsea FC as they receive the same annual revenue from Puma as the Blues do from Adidas but $15m a year less from Fly Emirates as the kit sponsor. The Gunners also likely receive a fair chunk of change from the UAE airline for the right to call their home ground the Emirates Stadium so they may have put less in to the kit sponsorship but more overall.
For a club that likes to put out the image that they are thrifty and like to focus on young and cheap players rather than established players in the transfer market, $94m a year is quite a lot of money. Fans of other clubs love to point out the hypocrisy of Arsenal in that regard but the Gunners contend that they they were paying for their stadium for so long that they can now flex their muscle in the transfer market.
Next: 4. Liverpool
Rounding out the top four is Liverpool who have opted for more non-traditional kit manufacturers in recent years. They were previously supplied by Warrior but the supplier’s parent company New Balance has opted to place their logo on the kit rather than their subsidiary. New Balance has been making a big push in to the football market with big players such as Nike apparently taking a back seat.
Of the top 10 kit manufacturer deals in world football, Nike only has one representative in FC Barcelona. New Balance in contrast has scooped up some mid-level clubs such as Stoke City and Celtic but have also landed some clubs that often make deep runs in Europe such as FC Porto and recent back-to-back Europa League champions Sevilla FC.
They recently lost the Arsenal, Everton, and Manchester United deals in the past two years and may have to wait a few more years to jump back into the game. Nike has even lost some of their other deals in Europe such as Juventus so New Balance could be poised to be one of the big boys in the football kit manufacturing game. The Reds receive $43.6m from New Balance and an additional $39m from Standard Chartered as the kit sponsor.
Next: 5. Manchester City
One team that has its place on this list inflated by the ties between ownership and a foreign government is Manchester City. The Citizens receive a reported $62.3m from kit sponsors Etihad Airways which is owned by the UAE government which of course has strong and somewhat indistinguishable ties to the Abu Dhabi United Group who officially own the club.
These close ties have lead to many questions over whether Manchester City can ever fully comply with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations without cooking the books in one way or another. FFP regulations have been relaxed recently but City’s spending in the transfer market could still land them in hot water down the line.
A more realistic reflection of the club’s commercial appeal is the paltry $18.7m a year they receive from Nike, placing them more on par with Tottenham and Everton than Chelsea and Manchester United. They are still very much in the lower echelon in terms of commercial appeal but a decade or so of on-field success can change that.
Next: Full Premier League Rankings
These rankings are not 100% accurate because many of the clubs in the bottom half of the “table” have undisclosed deals with their kit suppliers. Adidas recently snapped up Southampton for example but have not revealed how much they paid the Saints for that privilege. The Saints are listed so low because only their kit sponsorship deal is known and it is just $1.6m a year.
With their recent success and the growth of the Premier League as a whole, expect all of the numbers below to continue to grow over the course of the next decade. We are already seeing unprecedented numbers in terms of transfer fees so kit deals and sponsorship deals even for the smaller clubs will surely follow suit.
Full Premier League Kit Revenue Rankings:
- Manchester United – $195m
- Chelsea FC – $109.3m
- Arsenal – $94m
- Liverpool – $82.6m
- Manchester City – $81m
- Tottenham – $41m
- Everton – $17.6m
- Aston Villa – $13.6m
- Newcastle United – $9.3m
- West Ham United – $8.9m
- Sunderland – $7.8m
- Swansea City – $6.2m
- Stoke City – $4.7m
- Watford – $2.2m
- West Brom – $1.9m
- Leicester City – $1.6m
- Norwich City – $1.6m
- Southampton – $1.6m
- Bournemouth – $1.1m
- Crystal Palace – $1.1m
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