Unsurprisingly, Lionel Messi’s signing for Paris Saint-Germain has given previously unrealized gains, as the Argentine racked up new sponsorships and promotional sales never seen before.
According to Marca newspaper, Paris Saint-Germain sold more than a million shirts last season, with Messi surpassing Cristiano Ronaldo, who returned to Manchester United. Of this million, 60% is equivalent to Messi’s number 30 shirt. Thus the French club has overtaken the English language as the club that sells the most number of shirts worldwide.
In total, PSG earned 41 million euros from trade – in the first three hours, Messi’s jerseys earned 933 thousand euros. The arrival of the Argentine led to the club opening a giant store in the center of Avenida dos Campos Elisios in order to meet the demand, but even that was difficult to meet.
“Demand has grown by 30-40%, and what it can do only for this is supply. When a transfer of this magnitude occurs, such as Ronaldo to United, for example, one might think that players will be paid by selling shirts, but this is not true. You can’t produce too many extra T-shirts. There is a specific agreement to guarantee a minimum, but we have not been able to meet the demand for Messi jerseys. We touched the ceiling. We sell more, perhaps more than any other club in the world to a single player, and that takes us to the next level,” said Mark Armstrong, Director of Marketing.
Messi’s arrival also had a huge impact on social media – the club gained over 15 million followers across all platforms and broke the 150 million barrier for the first time.
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