Barcelona seal massive deal with Japan’s Rakuten
BARCELONA: Spanish giants Barcelona sealed a massive shirt sponsorship deal with Japanese online retailer Rakuten worth at least €55mil (RM259mil) a year.
One of world football’s most lucrative shirt sponsorship deals sees Japan’s leading e-commerce company replace Qatar Airways, Barcelona’s shirt sponsor since 2013, confirming Asia’s appetite for major investment in European football.
The deal, which begins in the 2017-18 season, will last for four years.
With the pulling power of top stars like Lionel Messi and Neymar, Barcelona’s success on the pitch ensures the club exert a huge draw on advertisers.
“The base contract is €55mil per year, with a bonus of €1.5mil (RM7mil) per year if the club win the La Liga and €5mil (RM23mil) if they win the Champions League,” Barcelona’s head of marketing, Manel Arroyo, told a news conference at the club’s Nou Camp.
Qatar Airways were reported to have paid €35mil (RM165mil) for the final year of their deal taking them up to the end of the 2016-17 season.
Barcelona boast some of the world’s most recognisable stars – vital marketing assets for the club’s partners – who have millions of followers on social media, promising invaluable exposure to sponsors.
Argentine striker Messi is one of the most popular athletes in the world on social media, with more than 78 million fan followers on Facebook alone.
Barcelona’s new sponsorship deal, however, falls short of the seven-year deal which Manchester United signed with Chevrolet which will earn the English club US$560mil (RM2bil) – about US$80mil (RM351mil) per year.
Barcelona – once renowned for never having had a sponsor on their shirts – had been looking to replace their Qatar Airways contract which was seen as below market value for a number of seasons.
They extended their contract last year with the airline for one year while they looked for a new partner.
Rakuten, seeking to boost its global image, is Japan’s biggest e-commerce company with more than 13,000 employees in Japan and turnover of more than US$18.2bil (RM80bil) in the first three quarters of the year.
The company is already involved in domestic sport in Japan, owning J-League club Vissel Kobe and pro baseball outfit Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.
“Our great ambition is to turn a Japanese brand into a global brand,” said Rakuten’s co-founder and chief executive officer Hiroshi Mikitani, a personal friend of the club’s defender Gerard Pique.
Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu said the talks were initiated by Pique, who arranged a dinner last year with Mikitani in San Francisco.
“Asia is a very important market for Barca,” he added. — AFP