How City's kit and sponsorship deals compareUpdated: June 27th, 2007
I thought I’d take advantage of the lull in the Thaksin proceedings to look at how City’s recent kit deal compares to other clubs.
Unfortunately figures are hard to come by. Umbro appear to keep details of their Premiership deals a closely guarded secret while yesterday’s announcement that Canterbury are to supply Pompey’s kit next season was typically short on detail. But I did find the figures for Newcastle and Spurs, which show we’re only getting half what they receive.
According to Roy Morgan Research City have 886,000 fans in the UK, Newcastle 1,159,000 and Tottenham 1,240,000, which makes the gap in revenue a bit puzzling, though maybe it just reflects our lack of exposure outside the UK.
The second table shows how our shirt sponsorship deal compares to other Premiership clubs.
Hopefully our sponsorship income will increase when our current deal ends next summer. Fulham, who were getting £1.25m-a-year from Pipex, yesterday signed a £3m-a-year deal with LG electronics which will last for two years. And Liverpool have today signed a new deal with sponsors Carlsberg worth £7.5m-a-year until 2010 - a £2.5m-a-year increase on what they were getting a couple of years ago.
In all City get £4m a year from their shirt and kit sponsorship deals, which is twice as much as Bolton.
If anyone can fill in any of the gaps please email me via the Contact/Contribute button at the bottom of the page. I’ll be putting both tables in the Finances section and updating them whenever there’s a change.
~ You can see a picture of our new away kit, taken from Soccer AM, at Mancityfans.
For the record
Thaksin Shinawatra will press ahead with his takeover plans for City despite concerns over Joey Barton’s human rights record, his lawyer has revealed.
“Obviously Mr Thaksin has a reputation to protect and reports of training ground atrocities, not to mention the well-documented ‘Mendes massacres’, could damage his standing with the Thai people,” Noppadon Pattama told Purelymancity last night. “But we’re definitely going to make a bid anyway. I know I said on Saturday that we’d already made one, but next time I’ll mean it. Honest.”
~ A poll at Bluemoon reveals that 65% of fans are in favour of a Thaksin takeover with 35% against (51 people voted).
~ Over at Wookie’s Lair m25_blue points out that Thaksin’s announcements are worryingly similiar to an infamous email scam.
~ The Times today has a feature about Barton (link) written by Peter Kay, chief executive of the Sporting Chance clinic.