Appropos of nothing, but during some down time this weekend, I took a look at who supplied the kits to BL teams. The results are a bit surprising. Leading the way with 6 teams are Nike (Hertha, 1.FCK, TSV, HSV, Bochum and Burghausen), Jako (Rostock, Cottbus, Freiburg, Ahlen, Karlsruhe and Braunschweig) and Uhlsport (Hannover, Bielefeld, Duisburg, Oberhausen, Reutlingen and Trier). The U.S.-based Nike would be the first among equals, since 5 of their teams are 1.BL. Who or what is Jako? Up to a couple years ago, I never heard of them. I think Uhlsport is a German company (long known in the US for GK gear, but not much of a presence otherwise) that, prior to this year, had not been a major BL kit supplier (at least not over the last few years). Why their resurgence?
Sorry for the multiple posts, but I can never do long posts without the whole thing being lost. Surprisingly, Adidas was fourth, with 5 teams supplied (Bayern, Bayer, Schalke, 1.FCN, and Burghausen). I say surprisingly because I figured that Adidas would be by far the dominant supplier in their home country. They have quality (with the likes of Bayern, Bayer and Schalke), but not quantity. Tied with two teams are Puma (the first among equals with two 1.BL teams, Wolfsburg and Stuttgart); Kappa (Bremen and St. Pauli) and Saller (Cologne and Union). I'm a bit befuddled by why Puma does not have a larger presence, since they are a German/Austrian supplier. Who the heck is Saller; never heard of them. There are a number of suppliers tied with 1: Reebok (Gladbach), Goool.de (BVB), Fila (Frankfurt), Lotto (Mainz), Diadora (Walfhof), Hummel (Lubeck) and Umbro (Greuther).
There are some reasons for this phenomenon: NIKE entered the German market quite late. They still are expanding and are a well liked partner for the teams. I guess NIKE likes to invade into the traditional Adidas country. ADIDAS, the traditional brand, is focussing on the top teams. They purchased I think 20 or 40% of Bayern Munich last year and recognised that sponsoring smaller teams doesn't bring money. Leverkusen is everything but pleased with their strategic partnership with Bayern and is heavily flirting with Nike. PUMA, another traditional brand, but for a long time almost completely out of the market and was dropped to number three already some time ago. In former times the teams that didn't get a sponsor contract with Adidas chose Puma, but meanwhile they also restrict their partnerships. JAKO is quite new, maybe a brand from Eastern Germany. As I said, smaller clubs don't get the top brands, some teams even have to pay for their equipment, and Jako is still offering quite good contracts for these underdogs. UHLSPORT is indeed traditional goalkeeper equipment. In former times they didn't dare to compete with Adidas & Co, but now they realised their chance with the old brands restricting themselves. SALLER is a sports store - they are no big brand, but basically only a simple store in Cologne I think. This are their first steps in this business. GOOOL.DE is Borussia Dortmund's own brand. They thought to have detected a mega business, but they are making loss with it and are deeply regretting to have quited the contract with Nike. FC Gütersloh is also wearing Goool.de (for free, guess why they aren't making money ) All others are not unknown brands either, I don't know why they aren't bigger in the business. Umbro also is a traditional goalkeeper equipment.
Very interesting. I did not know Bayer was disappointed with Adidas. I wonder why Stuttgart, which had been an Adidas team for quite some team, jumped ship to Puma? Same reasons, perhaps? The whole goool.de thing I did not know. On the surface, it makes sense--cut out the middle man on merchandise sales. But perhaps BVB is discovering that soccer teams should do what they do best and clothing manufacturers should do what they do best. Saller is interesting; a store in Cologne sponsoring 1.FC makes sense, but Union? More interesting is that Union was a Nike team last year. I always thought that Nike perceived them as an up and coming team and wanted to corner the "Berlin" market. Did Nike cut them loose or did Saller offer them a better deal? Anyway, good stuff; thanks for the info.
Stuttgart is too unattractive and Adidas didn't make enough money with their fan equipment, so they didn't extend the contract. Maybe they are also big in Berlin, I don't know. Nike stopped the deal with Union. I think they also want to focus on Bundesliga. Regarding Burghausen (as their only D2 team) there are two possibilities: contract didn't expire or Wacker (big chemicals producer) pays for having Nike
JAKO (founded in 1989) is a company from Baden-Württemberg. In the last 2-3 years Nike was Braunschweig's kit supplier, but this year they signed a contract with JAKO, because the club wasn't satisfied with Nike's service. They never delivered enough jerseys for the merchandising.
Olafg you are going to love this response: Bayer will switch to Nike as part of the Landon Donovan deal. Donavan remains in MLS forever - with Bayer getting a 25% sell-on clause. I just made this up - but thought you would enjoy it.
"Stuttgart is too unattractive . . . ." Wow, Balakov's not a handsome guy, but this goes too far! Seriously, what about Stuttgart makes them unattractive? It would seem to me that they are one of the "better" teams in Germany: champions as recently as '92 (only other teams to win since then have been Bayern, Dortmund, Lautern and I think Bremen); a great run in 96-97 (I think it was 96-97--the Magic Triangle Year with Balakov, Elber and Bobic) where they challenged much of the year for the championship and won the German Cup; a berth in the Cup Winner's Cup Finals the next year (they lost to . . . Chelsea, maybe?); they are from a big, wealthy city; they are fairly well-supported, etc. Granted, they've struggled as of late, but I'm surprised they would not be a coveted team.
Stuttgart does not belong to the very well liked clubs. This is because to the past with Mayer-Vorfelder and also as it is - as you said - a quite wealthy region where the people rather come with the success but not because of the team. But basically the sales are giving the facts and they were not good enough for Adidas to extend the contract.
I have an Adidas Stuttgart jacket somewhere--nice jacket--and I bought my niece a Stuttgart jersey (I was in Rothenberg O.D.T.--they had Bayern, 1.FCN and Stuttgart jerseys--my nephew got the 1.FCN jersey; couldn't bring myself to buy a Bayern jersey for them). So Adidas made some money off of Stuttgart from me.
I guess it has also something to do with a lack of media attention about VfB Stuttgart. Adidas owns Bayern and the national team and sponsors with Schalke and Leverkusen two other top-teams. So it was not essential to sponsor a club with disappointing sales and failing media attention.
Wow, that's an old thread. Do you plan on going through all the old threads now until you reach the first page? Welcome, btw .
Hannover 96's supplier next season will be Diadora. I'm really curious to see what the kits will lokk like. I fear that not as many kits will be sold if they are as tight as thise AS Roma jerseys.
HSV is changing to Puma for next Season, and Cologne from Saller to Adidas. Bielefeld will be switching from Uhlsport to Saller (haha!Saller Kits suck big time, way too ugly designs.) about the tight fit Diadora Stuff - Werder's got Kappa, it's as tight, you can get it up to XXXL or XXXXL if i remember correct...no Problem for "big people" then and i think Diadora Kits are just awesome in Design and Quality.
I hope you're right. Hannover 96's jersey right now is the 4th best selling one in the Bundesliga which I find pretty remarkable. It is beautiful though in comparison to a lot of other clubs. A poster on a 96-Forum messed a little bit with photoshop and came up with these suggestions based on the Roma jersey: I love them and hope that Diadora has similar thoughts. Maybe I should e-mail them a link to the thread so that they know what the 96-fans like to see and what they would hate to see.
Thanks. I'm Schalke fan and cause ouf the problems of our archrival, i thought about our financial sources. Currently we have the 4th highest endorsement deal in terms of kit sponsoring.
looks great.i heard about the hannover kits selling damn well, you got a list of the bundesliga club selling counts? and could i possible get the link to that thread, i might post some pics from pro evo soccer, i tried out a design based on roma kits also...
You are a lucky guy. I just strolled through my harddisk and found this old document. Source is sport1.de but the article isn't online anymore. The figures are from 2002/2003: Club/company/shirts sold/sponsoring money Bayern München adidas 650.000 6,14 VfB Stuttgart Puma 30.000 0,40 Borussia Dortmund Goool.de 150.000 1,18 Hamburger SV Nike 35.000 1,28 Hertha BSC Berlin Nike 70.000 3,01 Werder Bremen Kappa 20.000 0,41 FC Schalke 04 adidas 60.000 2,56 VfL Wolfsburg Puma 25.000 0,51 VfL Bochum Nike 5000 0,20 1860 München Nike 50.000 1,28 Hannover 96 Uhlsport 2500 0,65 Mönchengladbach Reebock 30.000 1,28 Hansa RostockJako 8000 0,26 Kaiserslautern Nike 50.000 1,28 Bayer Leverkusen adidas 40.000 1,02 Arminia Bielefeld Uhlsport 3000 0,30 1. FC Nürnberg adidas 15.000 0,38 Energie Cottbus Jako 6500 0,26 As BVB isn't that successful anymore we maybe sell fewer shirts. On the other hand we are now equipped by Nike which has a far bigger distribution system than goool.de. So maybe we even sell more shirts than 150.000/year. At all we now get between 38 and 45 Mio Euro for a 5-year deal. Most of the teams earn about 10-15 Euro per shirt. The rest is for the equipment company (btw, there are still people out there that think that Real can pay Beckham's transfer fee by shirt sales only...*rotfl*).
Actually, Umbro is a bit more than that... they are from the UK and have been making England, Republic of Ireland and Celtic FC kits for some time. They used to make Man Utd's and Scotland's as well. They areen't as strong as they used to be, however, even in the home countries.
Beckham is a fantastic marketing tool, so call me an idiot, but i believe that at least a big part of his transfer fee is justified because of his jersey sales. As far as i know Inter and Barcelona got extra cash from Nike because Ronaldo played for them. Thanks for these figures but they have to be very outdated. I heard that Bayern gets with 17 millions the same amount from adidas what Chelsea FC will receive from 2006.
i wanna see 1.FC Koln in adidas. wil lthe jerseys look like Schalke's jerseys ? can someone photoshop them in red, or post pictures
If you search ebay.de for "köln adidas" and completed auctions, there was a guy who was pre-selling them for like two days based on pics from the new adidas catalog. He had the same thing going for the new Bayern, Nürnberg, Schalke and Milan designs too.