For all the issues that Manchester United fans have with chief executive Ed Woodward with his inability to land the players that David Moyes wants, Woodward is without peer in football when it comes to growing commercial revenues.
Under Woodward’s guidance, Manchester United have rewritten the rules when it comes to commercials partnerships for a football club, and the United CEO is about to rewrite the record books once again.
The Mirror is reporting that the Premier League champions are set to to announce a world-record kit deal with Nike worth more than £600m over a 10-year period.
That is almost double the current best kit manufacturing deal, which sees Real Madrid earn £31m from their arrangement with adidas. United’s current Nike is worth £23.5m-a-season, which is less than what Real Madrid, Arsenal, Barcelona and Liverpool currently earn.
A lot of pundits recently have been talking about the £35m drop in revenues that United will see next season without Champions League football. But if you take the £60m from Nike and add in the £35m-a-year shirt sponsorship deal with Chevrolet that is set to kick in next season, then United could well see an INCREASE in revenues next season without playing in the Champions League. There is probably no other team in Europe that can make that statement.
Consider also the negative press that United got for agreeing to pay Wayne Rooney £300,000-a-week with his new deal. But the new Nike deal by itself is worth almost £37m a year more than their current deal. That is enough money to pay the wages of Rooney, Bayern’s Toni Kroos and PSG’s Edinson Cavani by itself.
And that is what has to worry United’s Premier League rivals. Under Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules, the clubs that have the biggest commercial revenues win as they can affords to sign and pay the best players. United dominate their domestic rivals in this category and if Woodward can figure out the transfer market like he has the commercial market, then this season will look more like for blip for United rather than a downward spiral.
