Paris Saint-Germain is undoubtedly one of the wealthiest football clubs on the planet. Yes, they may have just been outdone after Newcastle United’s takeover. Still, until that moment, it was probably between them and Manchester City competing for the title of the wealthiest football club in Europe.
When you have owners with unlimited wealth who can consistently pump massive amounts of cash in for transfers, wages, and the like, it raises the status of a club. Doing so means that companies and brands will want to get in on the act via sponsorship deals and marketing agreements, something that PSG is regularly the subject of.
If you’re a football club that is challenging on multiple fronts domestically and in Europe, and you can pay the big bucks, it means you can attract the world’s elite footballers. As we have seen recently with Mauricio Pochettino’s side, they were able to recruit Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest player of all time. And there are a lot of commercial benefits that come with being a club with the means to complete transfers of this magnitude.
Messi arriving at PSG, saw the club agree on deals with eight new sponsors almost immediately, with leading fashion brand Dior one of those keen to strike up a partnership. And as well as the new agreements, existing ones were quickly brought to the table for renewal, with the likes of Nike and Coca-Cola moving fast to extend the deals they already had with the club.
What is also becoming commonplace is for brands to use football clubs such as PSG as a vehicle to propel them into the mainstream. For a long while, cryptocurrencies were an underground product. And, to crack the mainstream, they needed to be able to be seen on the biggest stages of them all.
Crypto.Com has dipped into the market with multiple sports, teams, and more recently. And last year, they struck up a deal with PSG to become their principal crypto partner. As a result, they now have a roster to play with where their sponsorship agreements are concerned, and this approach has been repeated many times before, like for example, sports betting site Bwin, who sponsor various teams and a league.
It’s a mutually beneficial relationship for companies and teams such as PSG. The former get the exposure, and the latter receive financial incentives that can help them to balance the books, so to speak. Many have often complained about PSG spending more than they should. But it’s offset by income from sponsorships and partnerships.
And, if they continue in the same vein, on and off the pitch, they will only become an even bigger attraction for those looking to strike agreements on the commercial front. Manchester United has been at the top of the commercial game for decades, but PSG could be about to steal their title, becoming an even more significant money-making enterprise.
