— This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on August 12, 2021, Thursday.
The commercial value of Lionel Messi has been proven again and again as he is ranked by Forbes multiple times as the highest-paid soccer player globally. WTR says Messi owns more trademark registrations than any other soccer player, so he will bring a huge commercial boon for whatever club manages to secure his services. And this is proven true right after Messi confirmed to join PSG.
Kieran Maguire
Lecturer In Football Finance at The University of Liverpool
"They put 150,000 shirts on sale on their website last night at 10 pm UK time and they sold out within seven minutes. So there's certainly opportunities from commercializing and monetizing the Messi name and that will have allowed the club to have funded his salary."
Several media reports said Messi's new jersey shirt has been selling fast. More than 800,000 shirts have been sold with multiple sizes out of stocks. It is believed that the annual sales of Messi's jersey shirt were over 200 million euros while he was with Barca, of which the club collects a portion of around 10-15%. That means PSG can make a lot of money only by selling jersey shirts that bear the name of Messi and that major sports apparel companies which produce the shirts for PSG are can also benefit since they can take quite a portion from the sales.
At the same time, the broadcasters of Ligue 1 can also benefit from Messi's transfer, since fans will obviously be keen to see how Messi performs in the new club. Before Messi's transfer, Ligue 1 was struggling. Its local broadcasters were having financial difficulties. In June this year, Amazon struck a deal and bought broadcasting rights for 80% of their matches for its streaming platform. And as Messi joins PSG, the club has attracted a lot of attention, with official accounts on different social platforms adding millions of new followers in four days from the evening of Friday to the following Tuesday. This enhanced the club's ability to secure commercial sponsorships.
Since the Qatar consortium acquired PSG in 2011, the club has signed several superstars like Neymar and Messi, moving closer to become a top-tier European club. At the same time, Barca, which just lost Messi, will be facing significant losses. Brand Finance, a brand value consultancy, estimates that Messi's departure will cost Barca 137 million euros in terms of brand value, about 11% of its current value. The president of Barca said that the club's losses were expected to further expand to 487 million euros in the 2020-21 season, twice the initial estimate.
Without Messi, Barca is able to slash its wage costs which help to alleviate its debt burden, but the club is faced with the challenge in terms of boosting profits.