Nike breaks the bank to keep the Blues jersey

For once, France is not doing worse than Germany. On March 21, the German Football Federation announced that Nike would become its jersey partner for the 2027-2034 seasons. News that created emotion because the legendary German brand, Adidas, had equipped the Mannschaft, the national team, for 70 years. According to the overseas daily, Nike won because it promised to pay nearly 100 million euros per year to the four-time world champion team. This makes it the largest jersey sponsorship for a national team. A record that she did not hold alone for very long.

On Tuesday, Nike, which has supplied its jerseys to our Blues since 2011, re-signed a contract with the FFF (French Football Federation) so that the French team, double world champion, continues to wear the brand's jerseys at the comma for seasons 2026-2034. According to Le Parisien, Nike should pay around 100 million euros per year to the FFF, which does not hide its satisfaction: “The renewal of our partnership and the agreement reached position the FFF among the very first sports organizations in the world,” summarizes its president Philippe Diallo. In both cases, the American equipment manufacturer did not hesitate to double the grants currently paid (50 million) to win the bet.

An inflation that Adidas boss Bjørn Gulden considers “inexplicable. » He does not want to be part of this bidding war, believing that such investments cannot be profitable. In fact, the brand with the three stripes must make choices because it is just getting its head above water after a difficult year. In 2023, she lost money (75 million euros) even though she had been constantly in the green since 1992. The consequence of the hasty end of her collaboration at the end of 2022 with Kanye West who made anti-Semitic comments . As a result, the group found itself with a large stock of Yeezy shoes, the rapper's label, which suddenly became very difficult to sell: with this line, Adidas only made 750 million in revenue in 2023 compared to 1.2 billion the previous year.

Since then, the group has turned its head around: in the first quarter, it made 170 million in profits for a turnover of 5.5 billion. Nike, for its part, can afford to make golden bridges to national football federations because it is the undisputed leader of sports equipment manufacturers and continues to reap big profits: in the 2022-2023 financial year ending in June, the brand the comma earned $5.1 billion for revenues of $51.2 billion. To make up for some of its delay, Adidas prefers to “buy” the jerseys of the major European football clubs which regularly play in the Champions League.

Of the ten clubs which have the most valued jersey sponsorship, Adidas holds five (Real Madrid for 120 million euros per year, Manchester United for 105 million, Bayern Munich for 60 million...), Nike four (Barça for 105 million, PSG for 80 million...) and Puma one (Manchester City for 76 million euros). Bjorn Gulden praises the “advertising impact” of these operations. We will see if this strategy allows it to come back to tease Nike which, over the last decade, has dug a hole in its sector.