April 19 – Real Madrid have revealed that shirt sales featuring the name and number of world record signing Cristiano Ronaldo have already helped surpass the initial £80 million ($122 million) it took to sign him from Manchester United last summer.
Ronaldo’s switch from the Premier League to La Liga broke all records for a single player transfer when Real splashed out the single fee, without clauses or additional payments, last summer.
However, the Spanish club have claimed sales of branded shirts and other Ronaldo memorabilia have already seen them recoup a substantial amount of the 25-year-old’s transfer fee.
More than 1.2 million shirts with ‘Ronaldo 9’ on the back have been sold in the Spanish capital alone, with millions more thought to have been bought up elsewhere around Spain and across the world.
The income of around £100 million ($153 million) has not all gone towards paying back the outlay for the player’s services due to production and marketing costs and payments to kit manufacturer Adidas and Ronaldo himself.
But experts are predicting throughout the player’s six-year contract he will more than make up for his market value in merchandising alone – regardless of his performances on the pitch.
Past Real Madrid shirt sales have been boosted by marquee signings such as Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, and Luis Figo, although Ronaldo marketability is said to outweigh all of his predecessors.
Beckham sold an estimated one million shirts during his first season with Real.
A record 80,000 people packed the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid to see him unveiled to the fans for the first time – demonstrating his immense popularity among Los Merengues, who have seen him score 20 goals so far in La Liga.