Liverpool Football Club is set to switch its shirt provider in the coming season, from New Balance to Nike. It’s a lucrative deal, which is thought to be worth £70m — or a little over 15 per cent of the club’s current turnover — a year.

But it’s also a deal that New Balance were willing to match. So what explains the switch?

New Balance have made the club’s shirts since 2015, producing some very popular kits (this year’s black goalkeeper kit and last year’s home number — pictured below — among those most praised by fans).

© Jan Woitas/zb/dpa

Some supporters fear that, judging by the standards of some of Nike’s recent strips, the kits for next season won’t be up to much. This from the excellent fan blog/podcast The Anfield Wrap:

They [Nike] are not just supplying another Premier League club with a generic-looking kit in a different colour like they have with Manchester United and Chelsea in recent years. They would be wise to invest in all that makes Liverpool stand out as a club and market that when establishing their very own ‘brand Liverpool’. New Balance have been mindful of the unique position which they have occupied, and have put personal detail and clear effort into designing kits that resemble both a progressive and traditional Liverpool team.

The most common reason given by the club for the switch is that Nike has a far better global distribution network. This from The Athletic’s James Pearce:

Nike have vowed to sell the club’s kit in at least 6,000 stores worldwide of which 500 are Nike owned or controlled... ...New Balance have never managed to distribute Liverpool kit into more than 3,000 stores globally. The company have around 600 shops of their own with a further 3,500 franchise stores but many of those just sell shoes... ...Liverpool’s counsel argued that the figures which concluded that New Balance could distribute club merchandise to 6,300 stores around the world (a total subsequently adjusted to 6,146) was based on unreliable data provided by regional managers which was taken on face value. It would involve huge percentage leaps in territories such as China (2,200 per cent), Japan (330 per cent) and Brazil (2,009 per cent) which Liverpool deem to be completely unrealistic.

The hope, then, is that Nike will use its network to sell more shirts outside the UK.

We can see why this matters. Of the £455m in turnover the club recorded in the year to May 2018, a massive £440m came from the UK. (Of this revenue about a third, or £154m, is from ‘commercial’ activity, which includes merchandise — no further breakdown is provided.)

But while the supply side matters, we also get the feeling that football shirt sales ultimately owes more to factors affecting demand. We suspect the prime reason why people outside the UK will buy Liverpool shirts is because the team is winning big international competitions like the European Cup.

And if they continue to do so, then sports stores will continue to want to stock the shirts the world over.

For instance, in one of the big football shirt stores in Frankfurt (Karstadt Sports, in case you’re interested) they have a substantial selection of Liverpool tops, including home and away shirts and training apparel. It’s a lot bigger and more prominent than the section devoted to Manchester City, even though City’s kit is made by German manufacturer Puma.

The hope among fans and the club is that the team continue on their winning streak and Nike pay as much attention to Liverpool as they do to Paris St Germain, whose kits were made more appealing to a US audience through an affiliation with the ‘Jordan’ basketball line of apparel. In Asia, Nike have also recorded strong growth, though shirt sales there are more influenced by superstar players such as Ronaldo than clubs per se.

We’re looking forward to seeing what happens here, anyway. We’re also hoping our better informed readers can enlighten us further on what they think the impact of the move to Nike will be.

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