Best Selling Club Football Kits

According to research by German industry expert Dr. Peter Rohlmann from PR Marketing, Liverpool have been the leading team for shirt sales in the 2022-23 season. We also get many other interesting statistics on shirt sales thanks to him.

First and foremost, it is important to note that none of these sales statistics are official. They lead in the right direction, but there are surely big differences compared to the actual number of kits sold. For instance, we strongly question the notion that Arsenal sold only half as many kits as Manchester United, since Adidas pay Arsenal 60 million GBP while Manchester United receive 90 million GBP. The corresponding ratio of shirt sales should be approximately 66%, which is significantly higher than the supposed figure of below 50%.

Top 8 Best Selling Club Football Kits in 2022-23

According to PR Marketing, Liverpool have sold the most kits globally last seaosn with 1.8 million shirts. Arch-rivals Manchester United, were able to sell only 1.75 million jerseys in the same time period. The next two positions were taken by Spanish clubs, selling 1.7 million units (Real Madrid) and 1.6 million units (FC Barcelona), respectively. At roughly 1.35 million jerseys sold, Bayern ranked fifth that year.

Of the top eight football clubs in Europe in terms of global sales, four are in Adidas' portfolio. Three clubs wear Nike kits, with Puma having only one representative - Manchester City.

Thanks to @Lu_Class_, who shared the data of PR Marketing, we also get a more detailed look at the guessed Arsenal sales.

Arsenal Kit Sales From 2017-18 to 2022-23

Arsenal's shirt sales for the 22-23 season were up by around 18% on the 21-22 season, with 850,000 shirts sold, surpassing the 2017-18 season (when Puma was the shirt supplier) to become the team's best shirt sales season in the past 5 years.

Footy Headlines again doubt that Puma did sell more shirts than Adidas in their first year. There has been a big hype of Arsenal returning to Adidas, so shirt sales probably were up compared to Puma.

What is also very interesting is that Arsenal managed to sell more away than home kits in the 2022-23 season, for the first time in history. Sales of these away shirts increased by 80% compared to the 2021-22 season.

The away shirts were completely sold out weeks after the start of the season, with the club and Adidas struggling to keep up with demand. The club reportedly had a revenue of over £1 million on the first day of the sale of away shirts alone (meaning that they sold more than 10,000 shirts).

Although the number of shirts sold is high, the profit that comes directly from shirt sales is relatively low - the vast majority of profits go to kit manufacturers.

Are you surprised that Liverpool reportedly sell the most kits globally? Comment below.