Marketing & Sponsorship

Nike, Adidas bet big on World Cup football shirts

When England and Spain meet in the World Cup final on Sunday, millions of football fans will be glued to their televisions. Many will gamble on the outcome. But for companies like Nike and Adidas, there’s a whole other bet playing out: whether they made enough merchandise to satisfy the euphoric demand from fans of the winning team.

The companies decided months ago how many replica and authentic jerseys to manufacture for each of the women’s teams. Those decisions were based on a combination of historical shopping patterns for each country, conversations with retail partners and a fair bit of conjecture. Getting the picture wrong can have real consequences — both in terms of lost sales and angered fans.

“There is no formula for it — I wish there was,” Bjorn Gulden, chief executive officer of Adidas, said of the process for forecasting demand. “If there was someone who knew that, that person would be hired immediately.”

For this year’s Women’s World Cup, the stakes are particularly high. This is the first time the tournament has featured 32 teams and the prize money is triple what it was in 2019. Adidas, Nike and Puma have invested more than ever into marketing and outfitting some of the players. Globally, interest appears to be at an all-time high.

Now, for the wrinkle that nobody could have predicted: many of the tournament favorites, including every country that’s ever won the Women’s World Cup before, has already been eliminated.

Too many, too few

There are two ways to misjudge demand. If you produce too much of a country’s jerseys, it could take months to work through all that excess inventory (perhaps leading to steep markdowns in price.) That’s what Puma had to do twice in recent years after Italy’s men’s football team failed to even qualify for the World Cup.

The other mistake — the real sin in the eyes of fans — is when you don’t produce enough of a particular jersey. Puma experienced that too, when it failed to order enough Manchester City jerseys in time for a swell in demand after the Abu Dhabi majority-owned club won England’s so-called “treble” — the Premier League title, the FA Cup and Europe’s Champions League — over a few weeks this spring.

Learn more
“Demand was significantly higher than what we have anticipated,” Puma CEO Arne Freundt acknowledged. “That was an opportunity for us to re-order and reproduce.”

It may have also cost Puma money. That’s because when a team wins a big title — or a high-profile player does something remarkable, like shocking the world by changing teams — it tends to create a massive spike in demand for jerseys that lasts for just a few days, according to Doug Mack, CEO of Fanatics Commerce.

If you can’t meet that demand right away, chances are you’ll lose potential business as disappointed fans give up and move on with their lives.

“That first 72 hours is a disproportionately interesting selling opportunity,” Mack said in an interview.

Seeing the future

There are ways to satisfy fans, nonetheless. Merchandise companies often flood the market with easily stockpiled items that only require a little final printing work or other touches — such as novelty championship hats, T-shirts and other collectibles. Uniforms, however, typically require more lead time to manufacture properly, which often forces brands to place new orders with factories that may not have much capacity at the time.

To hedge against such risks, companies such as Fanatics have experimented with new ways of predicting demand. A newcomer to the sports merchandise world, Fanatics runs, among other things, the e-commerce stores for all sorts of professional leagues and sports federations. It also licenses Nike’s Swoosh to produce the fan replica and authentic jerseys for, among other things, the National Football League.

This past spring, it leveraged its professional football contacts to create a model predicting the probability that superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers would get traded to the New York Jets, as rumored at the time.

As the odds got better, in Fanatics’ eyes, it ordered up a huge stockpile of blank Jets jerseys. That came in handy when the trade actually happened, since Rodgers became the most popular jersey, selling more than the next nine players combined, according to the company. “All we had to do after the trade is finish the jerseys with his name and number,” Mack said.

It’s not always so easy. Take the case of Lionel Messi announcing his plans in early June to sign with Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami. On paper, this should have been a slam dunk for Adidas, which has had an endorsement deal with Messi for more than a decade and which outfits every team in the MLS.

Yet there were a couple of challenges. Until late in the process, Messi was also rumored to be considering signing again with Barcelona, his old club, or even a team in Saudi Arabia. The other problem: Inter Miami’s uniforms are bright pink.

As a result, fans in mid-August are still required to “pre-order” Messi’s Miami jersey from Adidas, which is scrambling to ratchet up supplies.

“Miami is playing in a color that is not normally very commercial to have on stock, so we didn’t really have that much of the material,” Adidas boss Gulden explained. “I can assure you that both factories and aircrafts and whatever we can use has been used to fulfill that demand.”

Underdogs

Companies risk becoming punching bags when they’re caught off guard. England’s Mary Earps has taken Nike to task for not making fan versions of women’s goalkeeper jerseys (Adidas also doesn’t make these.) Meanwhile, Adidas has been criticized for not making versions of the women’s World Cup uniforms in men’s sizes, Gulden said.

Then there are the usual challenges with big tournaments. As ever, there have been some high-profile upsets, with Germany exiting in the first round (sorry, Adidas) and the US getting eliminated early in the knockout stage (sorry, Nike).

While that could leave these companies with more merchandise than fans want, it’s not necessarily bad for the sport. When the same teams win over and over, their fans don’t necessarily go crazy with enthusiasm, Mack says. When an underdog wins, though, it can create rare levels of excitement.

As it turned out, each of the two big sportswear makers ended up with a team in the final: Nike sponsors England, while Adidas sponsors Spain.

“First-time champions do incredibly well,” Mack says. “Those fan bases get activated.”

Bloomberg

Media

How To Watch The Club World Cup Draw Live On DAZN: Date, Time, Draw Format

The FIFA Club World Cup takes place in July 2025 in the US, with the world’s best clubs and players fighting it out to be crowned world champions and it will all be broadcast live on DAZN.

All 63 matches in competition will be broadcast by DAZN worldwide, in multiple languages, and all for free, as clubs from Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Oceania all compete.

The build up to the expanded, 32-team competition heats up when the tournament draw is made on Thursday, December 5,which you can watch for free exclusively on DAZN. Sign up here for a free DAZN account to watch.

The new format is set to be played every four years, just like the World Cup.

Who is in the Club World Cup draw?
The 32 clubs involved are some of the biggest in the football world. They include Real Madrid, River Plate, Flamengo, Juventus, Boca Juniors, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain.

Qualification for the tournament was based on either winning a continental title – IE: UEFA Champions League or CONMEBOL Libertadores – in one of the four most-recent seasons or by having a high ranking of performance in the top-level continental tournament over the four-year period.

So, for a country like England, who were given two slots, Manchester City and Chelsea will represented them, rather than say Liverpool, because the former two clubs have won the Champions League more recently.

Pot 1: Manchester City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Flamengo, Palmeiras, River Plate, Fluminense
Pot 2: Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Porto, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Juventus, Salzburg
Pot 3: Al Hilal, Ulsan, Al Ahly, Wydad, Monterrey, Club Leon, Boca Juniors, Botafogo
Pot 4: Urawa Red Diamonds, Al Ain, Esperance Sportive de Tunisie, Mamelodi Sundowns, Pachuca, Seattle Sounders, Auckland City, Inter Miami
How to watch the Club World Cup draw
The Club World Cup draw will take place at 6pm GMT; 1pm ET; 12pm CT on Thursday, December 5. It will be broadcast live and for free on DAZN worldwide.

To watch on DAZN, simply enter your email address to setup a free account and that is it. Sign up here.

Or, if you are already a DAZN subscriber or Freemium member, then the draw is part of your current membership.

DAZN News will also be running a live blog of the draw to keep you fully up-to-date with proceedings.

How does the draw work and key rules?

The pots
Pot 1 is made up of the highest-ranked teams from Europe and South America. Pot 2 is the rest of Europe.

Pot 3 is the best of Asia, Africa, Concacaf and the rest of South America

Pot 4 is all remaining clubs.

The rules of the draw
No group can feature more than one team from the same confederation except for UEFA, which has 12 teams across the eight groups
Teams from the same country cannot be drawn together, which only affects Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid
Inter Miami CF take position four in Group A and will play the opening game
Seattle Sounders take position four in Group B to ensure they play at their home ground
There is also a seeding structure in place, which means UEFA’s top seeds Real Madrid and Manchester City will be in opposite halves of the draw, as will CONMEBOL’s Flamengo and Palmeiras. It means these teams will not potentially meet until the semi-finals, if they all win their respective groups.

The same principle of being in opposite halves of the draw applies to Pot 1 seeds 3 and 4 for each confederation, which are Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain; and River Plate & Fluminense.

In Pot 1 the UEFA teams will be placed into groups so that, if they finish first in the group, they cannot play each other before the semi-finals. The same applies to the four South American teams.

To achieve the necessary draw build for Pot teams, pathways have been created.

Pathway 1: Winners of Groups A, C, E and G play the runners-up of Groups B, D, F and H.
Pathway 2: Winners of Groups B, D, F and H play the runners-up of Groups A, C, E and G.
In Pot 2 Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Internazionale and FC Porto will be drawn into a group with one of Flamengo, Palmeiras, River Plate, Fluminense.

Atlético Madrid, Benfica, Juventus and RB Salzburg will be drawn into a group with one of Manchester City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain.

How the draw will run
Finally we can actually get to the draw. It will start by drawing all of the teams from team pot 1, then pots 2, 3 and 4. Groups will be filled in order, subject to draw rules.

For Groups A and B, the other teams take the same position as their pot (as Inter Miami and Seattle are in position 4).

For Groups C to H, the position in the group will be drawn. This influences the order of the fixtures.

Where is the Club World Cup being staged?
The July 2025 tournament will be hosted by the United States, as a warm up to them co-hosting 2026 World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico.

There will be 12 different stadiums used for the club competition.

The first match will be held in Miami on Sunday, June 15, at the Hard Rock Stadium, and will see home club Inter Miami play.

New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium will host the final on July 13.

Atlanta, Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Charlotte, TQL Stadium
Cincinnati, Bank of America Stadium
Los Angeles, Rose Bowl Stadium
Miami, Hard Rock Stadium
Nashville, GEODIS Park
New Jersey, MetLife Stadium
Orlando, Camping World Stadium
Orlando, Inter&Co Stadium
Philadelphia, Lincoln Financial Field
Seattle, Lumen Field
Washington DC, Audi Field

Watch the Club World Cup draw live on DAZN
Club World Cup

Or, if you are already a DAZN subscriber or Freemium member, then the draw is part of your current membership.

A DAZN Freemium account costs nothing and provides access to action across football, boxing, NFL, golf, darts, motorsports, basketball and padel.

This includes the UEFA Women’s Champions League, NFL, PDC Darts, LIV Golf, Super League Basketball and Saudi Pro League, plus other weekly specially selected games, leagues, sports and highlights.

Free TV Channels include Matchroom Boxing, PGA Tour, PDC Darts, PowerSports World, Billiard TV and Padel Time TV.

You only need an email address to register for a Freemium account, with no hidden costs or fees.

Marketing & Sponsorship

FIFA Agree $1BILLION Deal with DAZN To Broadcast 2025 Club World Cup

FIFA has agreed a deal with British streaming service DAZN to broadcast next year’s Club World Cup in the United States.

All 63 matches will be available to fans worldwide for free on DAZN’s platform in a deal reportedly worth around $1billion. There are also expected to be sub-licensed deals to local networks.

FIFA had initially struggled to sell the broadcasting rights to the competition and had previously been in talks with Apple over a global streaming deal.

In a statement, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said: “I am delighted to announce that FIFA, in partnership with DAZN and FIFA+, will bring the best of club football for free to everywhere in the world, meaning that every single football fan across the globe can watch the best players from the 32 best clubs compete in the new FIFA Club World Cup to be the first official ‘FIFA Club World Champions’.

“The new FIFA Club World Cup is a merit-based, inclusive tournament that will be the pinnacle of global club football, capturing the imagination of players and fans across the world.”

DAZN’s chief executive officer Shay Segev, hailed the deal as a “major milestone” for the broadcaster.

The 2025 Club World Cup will begin on June 15 at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, with the final taking place on July 13 at the MetLife Stadium in New York.

It will feature 32 teams from across the globe, including Manchester City, Chelsea and Inter Miami.

The draw for the tournament is set to take place in Miami on Thursday at 6pm.

Marketing & Sponsorship

AB InBev Named Official Beer Sponsor Of The FIFA Club World Cup 2025

FIFA has extended its partnership with AB InBev as the official beer sponsor of the upcoming 2025 FIFA Club World Cup from June 15 to July 13.

AB InBev is also a sponsor of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be co-hosted by 16 cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States, the brewer noted.

The brands Budweiser and Michelob Ultra will lead the partnership, complemented by local brands in select markets.

‘New Global Tournament’
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said, “AB InBev has been an iconic sponsor of our events for almost 40 years. Today, we are delighted to welcome them as a partner of the new FIFA Club World Cup.

“We are at the beginning of a journey that will redefine club football and bring a new global tournament to life. With AB InBev’s brands by our side, we can create unforgettable moments for football fans around the world.”

FIFA Club World Cup 2025 will see the participation of 32 of the world’s best football clubs for a month-long tournament across 11 host cities.

‘Multifaceted Sponsorship’
As part of the multifaceted sponsorship, AB InBev will create unique brand experiences in participating countries, present the “Superior Player of the Match Award” and amplify memorable moments from the tournament.

“Our brands are at the heart of the world’s most meaningful cultural moments and iconic sporting events,” said CEO of AB InBev, Michel Doukeris.

“Our partnership with the FIFA Club World Cup continues this tradition by bringing beer and sport together for fans around the world, creating more moments of togetherness and conviviality. We look forward to activating this unique tournament with FIFA next summer.”

ESM Magazine