Sports brand Puma’s strategy of tying up major European football clubs to kit supplier agreements has generated a substantial new deal with Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund.
According to German press reports, the deal is worth €250m ($278m) over eight years, or €31m per year, from 2020-21 to 2027-28.
SportBusiness Soccer puts the current deal, from 2017-18 to 2021-22, at €9m per year. It has been renegotiated mid-term to more accurately reflect the commercial value of the rights. The new deal will come into effect on July 1, 2020.
The new deal was originally pitched at 10 years, but Puma baulked at committing beyond eight years because of the unpredictability of the market, according to Germany’s Kicker magazine.
Speaking to SportBusiness Sponsorship last year, Johan Adamsson, head of sports marketing for team sports at Puma, said the move towards major club deals was to position the brand as a “clear number three” in football after Nike and adidas.
Adamsson said: “If you are football-specific, we are the number three football brand, and we are trying to position ourselves to be a clear number three.
“Of course, Nike and adidas are much bigger than we are so we are still a challenger brand, and that’s also our brand persona. But we are a performance brand, one of the top three, and trying to further strengthen our position going forward.
“Of course, the bigger leagues in Europe are very important – not only in the domestic market but also on a global scale. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have partnerships in other territories for clubs.
“We’re trying to operate at all levels. In football, we’re setting out to achieve: ‘No football without Puma, No Puma without football’”.
The relationship between Borussia Dortmund and Puma began in season 2012-13. The sports brand acquired a five-per-cent stake in the club in 2014, with Puma chief executive Björn Gulden taking a seat on the board.
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Puma’s portfolio of top European club deals includes Premier League club Manchester City, Ligue 1’s Olympique de Marseille and Girondins de Bordeaux, LaLiga’s Valencia and Serie A’s AC Milan.