Liverpool Sponsorships By The Numbers

Liverpool has managed to establish and maintain lots of lucrative sponsorship deals over the years and this year it's no different. The club has successfully brokered partnerships with big corporations such as Standard Chartered, New Balance, Nivea, Garuda Indonesia, EA Sports, Vitality, Gatorade, Konica Minolta, Honda, and other less illustrious brands which together with player sales, selling official club merchandise, and sales of match tickets have brought Liverpool's revenue for the past year to £297.9million.

The deals that Liverpool has struck, as is visible from the list above, are with the largest Indian international bank, with an established sports equipment brand, with the world's leading cosmetics producer, with the best sport games developer, and with many other companies with different backgrounds. The only partner missing in their sponsorship portfolio is an online casino sponsor like Unibet. But we have heard some whispers that a deal such as this one may already be negotiated behind the curtains. 

If we break down each of these sponsorship deals we will see that, expectedly, the Standard Chartered deal is the most fruitful deal for Liverpool. The Indian investment Bank is Liverpool's main club sponsor and it started working with the Anfield club in 2010, right after the club's sponsorship deal with Carlsberg expired. 

Carlsberg gave Liverpool around £7.45 million per season and the fact that Standard Chartered increased this number to £20 million, made the deal a no brainer for the Liverpool hierarchy. This sum of £20 million was injected in Liverpool's coffers for the next five seasons. 

However, in 2013, in the third year of their sponsorship deal, Liverpool and Standard Chartered extended their collaboration for three additional years, and now the sponsorship deal ends at the end of this year, with this year's sponsorship revenue set at £25 million.

When you compare Liverpool's current sponsorship deal with their direct rivals from the English Premier League they are in fourth position behind Manchester United who receive £47 million per year from Chevrolet, Chelsea, receiving £40 million from tyre makers Yokohama, and Arsenal who get £30 million from Fly Emirates every year.

Liverpool's kit supplier for this season is New Balance. New Balance is the parent company of Warrior (who is Warrior), Liverpool's kit sponsor until last year. Liverpool put pen to paper on a 6 year deal with the American manufacturer of lacrosse, ice hockey and football equipment in 2012. This deal was worth around £25 million per year, but the whole package could go as high as £300 million.

The official training kit sponsor of Liverpool FC is Garuda Indonesia. The airline started its partnership with the Merseyside club in 2010 in an attempt to raise the profile of the not so well known company. The deal is apparently worth £9 million per year and it stipulates that Liverpool players and staff need to wear the company's logo on their training jerseys during their training sessions and when on the bench during matches.

However, it seems that the Garuda Indonesia management aren't quite satisfied with the results that their partnership with Liverpool has generated and they aren't looking to extend their affiliation with the club once their current deal ends.

In general, the afore mentioned three sponsorship deals are the most profitable for Liverpool in terms of direct investments in the club. However, Liverpool have also entered into some unconventional partnerships such as those with Nivea and Chaokoh, as a strategy to expand their 'product' to new 'consumers'. 

As Billy Hogan, Liverpool's chief commercial officer says, the reason why Liverpool have entered into these kinds of partnerships is to fulfil their vision of expanding their brand into previously unchartered territories for football clubs.

This Nivea ad, for example, isn't something that most chief commercial officers would think of when trying to promote their clubs. Nevertheless, Liverpool did it, and are now paving the way for other clubs to follow suit and form unorthodox partnerships which may yield even more money than traditional football sponsorships in the long run.