By
merchandizing, it is necessary to hear « a strategy which consists in
selling a whole catalog of varied products with the emblem of the club
(clothing, linen, toys, portfolios for child, bags, watches, perfumes,
etc » (Andreff W., 2000, COp cit., p. 184). It results from
the awakening by the leaders and managers of the affluent professional clubs
that the reputation and the notoriety of the club, to acquisition of which the
players and the supporters contribute, can be sources of commercial receipts
some. Moreover, in certain cases, a good handle of economic operators could
already exploit the label of principal local formations without that not being
regarded as an illicit act.
ANDREFF translates better the intention of the leaders of the
professional clubs, in term of advantages that the technique would get to
them : « They can attract important commercial receipts by
exploiting themselves, on a great scale, the image and the notoriety of the
club... The importance of the strategy is measured by receipts which it reports
to certain clubs. Thus, in 1997, it accounts for 10% of the receipts of Milan
AC, 13% in Tottenham, 22% with Newcastel, 34% in Manchester United. In this
club, specifies Andreff, the merchandizing reached the same weight as the
receipts with the counter in 1998 » (Ibidem).
With the international scale, the merchandizing has all the
characteristics of a way towards « the internationalization of the
marketing strategies of the clubs or the leagues » (BAYLE and DURAND,
2000, COp cit., p. 154).
In preparation for the evolutions recently noted as regards
merchandizing, one would tend about one time oùles clubs firms will seek
to seal international alliances with foreign economic operators on the one
hand, and clubs of other countries, on the other hand. With the first, it is
about the establishment of the agreements tending to ensure promotion and
marketing outside the colors and emblems of large teams of football.
It is clear that these agreements will be of commercial nature
and thus signed with the help of payment of the sums discussed as a
preliminary. The tradesmen would not engage since insofar as, it is convinced
of the notoriety and the undeniable reputation of the club partner in his
jurisdiction. Thus, the tradesmen of a country could sell products which belong
to him, but that it condescends to provide before their setting on sale to the
colors of the foreign team.
With the seconds, the objective remains the same one, but the
different manner. The local teams will have to seem the purchasers of the
jackets and other particular features characterizing the club firm. Four years
ago, the German club of Borussia Dortmund was considered in the medium of the
fanatics of the Congolese team of Vita Club the ancestor of the latter. The
hyphen was simply the colors of two clubs, green (lemon-yellow) and black.
Blow, one noted in Kinshasa, the sale in great quantity by tradesmen of the
objects raising the colors of the local club but at the same time of
Borussia.
Lastly, which seems more obvious to be conceived, it is that
the foreign subsidiary companies of the multinational corporations held by the
businessmen, patrons and investors in the professional sport would be with the
front of the international radiation of the strategy of the merchandizing.
Indeed, these local manufacturing units will be able easily to insert in their
marketing the merchandizing, in this direction which they would manufacture of
the objects, their products with the colors of the teams and characters sports
who are sponsored by their head office. This that the examples are already
legion, in the automobile sport is not. Michael Schumacher gets dressed with
the colors with Ferrari, product of the Fininvest group, pertaining to the
Italian tycoon Silvio Berlusconi.
The stake remains of size and the enticing prospects. In the
same way, controlling nearly four clubs, namely Glasgow Rangers, Slavia Prague,
Vicence and AEK of Athens, (European Commission, Directorate-General X, 1998,
p. 7) (the European sporting model) English National Investment Company could
open units of distribution in the jurisdiction of each of four teams to market
its products with the colors of its sporting branches and to redistribute the
receipts to them according to a percentage to determine.
