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The Immediate Impact on The Club
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Source: SJR10
In last week’s newsletter (subscribe if you haven’t already), we discussed one of the bigger sports stories of the year. Messi left Barcelona! Now that he has officially signed with a new club, for the first time in his professional career, we can look at the impact he will have on them going forward.
Messi watch was in full effect, it was as if we were watching a high-speed police chase in the 80s, our eyes were peeled to our screens. Is Messi still home? Yup. How about now? No? Where did he go? He’s on his way to the airport, to catch a flight to Paris. Has he landed? Yes. Let the crowd ensue and the games begin. From the moment Leo stepped off of the plane, we’d say PSG did a solid job in capitalizing on the moment. First, they swapped him out of his tee to a PSG “ici c’est Paris” tee which was available on Fanatics but now sold out, obviously.
You can, however, purchase a “ici c’est wwm” tee here. We had to capitalize on the moment.
From then on, they had control of every moment and maximized the eyes fixated on them. They continued the build-up on social media, continuously teasing his signing, yet everyone already knew he was already on his way. Since then the last 24 posts on PSG’s Instagram account were about Messi, that’s wild! Additionally, their numbers have just sky-rocketed! Their account was already massive beforehand but since his signing, they have more than doubled their Instagram following to 45M.
With all this increased attention and numbers, we get to the question what impact does it have now? Every aspect of their business has now increased in value, whether it’s sponsorships, media rights, or even apparel providers. However, unlike Barcelona, PSG does not have all of their eggs in one basket, they are actually set up quite nicely regardless of when Messi leaves or retires. Barcelona tied the majority of their marketing, sponsorship, and even broadcasting to Messi. However, last year once it became clear there was uncertainty in his future at the club, deals started to fall through and companies wanted short-term deals. This put the club in financial distress, which reiterates the point in building up the personal brands of athletes even if clubs won’t necessarily reap all the benefits, it still adds value to their business.
We can see this now with PSG, yes, they do have one of the biggest names in sports now but they also have many other large personalities. Mbappe. Neymar. Ramos. Donnarumma. Etc. PSG will have the flexibility to push opportunities amongst their various athletes rather than relying on the one, this will allow for greater future success as their financial future is within their own control.
Whether you’re a Messi fan, or not, your eyes will be glued to PSG this upcoming season, to see what the club does next whether it is on or off the pitch.
Published: August 13th, 2021 - Issue 4 of The Sport Marketeer