Emirates and Arsenal agree new £150m deal

Arsenal have today confirmed a long-term extension to their shirt sponsorship deal with Emirates.

The deal, worth £150 million in total, will see the Gunners earn £30 million a season for the next 5-years and affords Emirates the right to emblazon their brand on both match kits and training gear.

The Gunners currently earn £5.5million a season from their shirt sponsorship with Emirates – a figure which was agreed in October 2004 and came as part of a package which included naming rights for the new stadium at Ashburton Grove until 2021. Those naming rights will remain under the Emirates brand until 2028 as part of the new agreement.

The annual increase, which is worth nearly five and a half times the current package, has been warmly welcomed at board level with CEO Ivan Gazidis stating:

“This is an exciting day for Arsenal Football Club and all our supporter. This agreement is a testimony to Arsenal’s approach and to the capabilities we have developed in recent years as well as the strength of our partnership with Emirates.

“The original deal with Emirates was a key facilitator of our move from Highbury and this next phase of our relationship will be just as critical to keep us at the top of the game in England and Europe.

“Emirates is the perfect partner for Arsenal and we are delighted to have agreed a new partnership. Emirates is a world-class brand and by flying to more than 120 destinations across six continents has a truly global reach.

“This reach will play an important role in our own ambitions to further extend the depth of our following around the world. The fact this partnership will continue for many years to come underlines how much both organisations value and benefit from the relationship.”

While the current partnership provided vital revenue to help fund the move from Highbury, it has since been dwarfed by commercial deals completed by rivals both at home and abroad.

Earlier this year Manchester United agreed a record £357 million package with American car manufacturer Chevrolet which will see them earning at least £45 million a season until 2021. While that deal remains unsurpassed, Arsenal’s agreement with Emirates will catapult them up the shirt sponsorship leaderboard into second place behind the Old Trafford side.

In December 2010 Barcelona agreed a five-year deal worth £125 million with the Qatar Foundation (soon to be Qatar Airways), Bayern Munich agreed a £71 million three-year partnership with Deutsche Telecom running until 2013, while Liverpool, Manchester City and Sunderland each earn £20 million a year from Standard Chartered, Etihad Airways and Invest in Africa respectively.

Arsenal’s £30 million a season package is nearly double the £16.8 million which reigning La Liga side Real Madrid earn with betting company Bwin and three times the figure which Tottenham make from their dual-partners Autonomy and Investec.

Emirates also sponsor the shirts of AC Milan, Paris Saint German, Hamburg and Olympiakos and entered a partnership with Real Madrid last summer. The airline also put their name to the Emirates Cup, Arsenal’s prestigious two-day, pre-season tournament, hold official partner status with FIFA and sponsor the Asian Football Confederation.

In addition to the investment by Emirates the Gunners are also expecting a financial windfall from a new kit manufacturer partnership. Arsenal have worn kit made by Nike since 1994 and penned a 10-year extension in 2003 worth £130 million (including £55 million in cash given in 2006).

It remains to be seen whether CEO Ivan Gazidis and CCO Tom Fox stick with the American giants or, as speculation would suggest, opt to revitalise long-standing links with German brand Adidas.

Not bad .

Finally a great move by the board/management.

Considering we haven't won squat for 7 years, being behind Man Utd in shirt sponsorship revenue is fantastic.

Hope this will a catalyst of things to come. (contract negotiations,transfers etc.)

When you scrutinise it further, I feel we've still fallen short. £30m a year for the shirt alone would've made more sense as the stadium deal commences from 2014 through to 2021- working out at £7m a year, if you will. The shirt deal being 5 years working out to £20m a year. The stadium name should have been at least £10ma year imho. Remain to be seen what happens with Nike or the Adodas rumour...

Nike renewal/New Adidas deal has to be at least £20m a year. With an increased Asia fan base, any kit manufacturer should be looking to cash in on opportunity

Much Much better than the previous deal. This is pretty good.

MOAR money
matching our ambitions

This 30 milion pounds a year include the stadium name or that's another deal?

Including the stadium name rights i believe. Which also means Stadium will continue to be known as Emirates Stadium till 2028

Few Other points from twitter

-£30m p/a is a significant rise from £5.5m Arsenal were getting. Emirates have benefited a lot from Arsenal in past and want to continue.

-Other Sponsors in the league: MUFC(Chevrolet) - £40m Arsenal (Emirates) - £30m Liverpool (Standard Charter) - £20m MCFC (Etihad) - £20m

-Training kit also included in Emirates deal. Gazidis says arsenal didn't want to "clutter shirt and training kit with different brands".

-Gazidis says Emirates will pay a sum up front so money can be made available for transfers next summer.

-When Arsenal sign kit deal & new PL tv monies come in club will earn well over £300m a year.

How many FALCAOs can we buy with 150m deal?

we can buy 3 FALCAOs.

Good day fellows!

Its not as stellar a deal as it seems. Its shirt + Stadium. 30 mil for only shirt would have been good. MUFC doesn't play at Chevrolet Stadium.

I am not entirely pleased that OUR stadium is not called THE HIGHBURY or THE ARSENAL STADIUM or even ASHBURTON GROVE. Instead, we have to sell our home, (and our souls with it), for EMIRATES STADIUM. Not a practical point of view, I know, but money is what does the talking now. And a revenue stream couldn't be neglected.

Which brings me to the question - Why not a training kit sponsor? If revenue streams have to be fully exploited, then is that not another avenue missed? Or are we so loyal to the Emirates brand now? I thought our best interests were to do with the club itself.

Good day to you all.

SUPERCARTTS wrote:When you scrutinise it further, I feel we've still fallen short. £30m a year for the shirt alone would've made more sense as the stadium deal commences from 2014 through to 2021- working out at £7m a year, if you will. The shirt deal being 5 years working out to £20m a year. The stadium name should have been at least £10ma year imho. Remain to be seen what happens with Nike or the Adodas rumour...

Glad to see I am not the only one who spotted this.

Now that we got the money its time for the board to pay up, Sign Walcott and Sanga.

Sri, welcome back and you have very good points.

Maybe you will only sell one player this summer

I still dont trust our board with this money, do you guys think the club will fully benefit from this? Christmas came early for Kroenke he has been waiting for this day for few years now.

As a fan I am not happy, I know Ivan is though.

Swiss Ramble

New deal covers 5-year extension in shirt sponsorship from 2014 to 2019 plus 7-year extension in stadium naming rights from 2021 to 2028. This represents a significant improvement over current deal: £90m for 8 years shirt sponsorship plus 15 years stadium naming rights. Likelihood is naming rights element of deal is worth very little. Current £90m deal includes £42m for naming rights, so only £2.8m a year. If that is unchanged, then that would be worth around £20m of new deal (7 years x £2.8m). That would leave £130m for shirt sponsorship (+ training kit), so £26m a year, compared to current £5.5m. If naming rights extension effectively worth nothing, due to “stickiness” of Emirates name, then shirt sponsorship worth £30m a year. Either way, this is higher than every other club with the exception of Manchester United’s Chevrolet deal (£45m). The deal could also be worth more if team is successful, as bonus payments for success likely to be included in contract. So, an impressive deal, though question is how good it will look in a few years time when other leading clubs renegotiate their deals. Also, there should be a similar uplift when Arsenal renegotiate Nike kit supplier deal with Adidas strongly rumoured to be replacement.

srigooner wrote:

SUPERCARTTS wrote:When you scrutinise it further, I feel we've still fallen short. £30m a year for the shirt alone would've made more sense as the stadium deal commences from 2014 through to 2021- working out at £7m a year, if you will. The shirt deal being 5 years working out to £20m a year. The stadium name should have been at least £10ma year imho. Remain to be seen what happens with Nike or the Adodas rumour...

Glad to see I am not the only one who spotted this.

Ivan Gazidas gets 2 mill a year for this? SUPER and Sri could do a better job.

Given that we've not won anything for a long time, I think we've done pretty well. We're going to be earning six times as much as before. It's a massive improvement.

Maybe there are areas where it could be better, but with this, plus the switch to Addidas, plus the new TV deal, we should be loaded in the years to come which will hopefully mean less need to sell players and a higher willingness to spend on bigger transfer fees and wages.

All looks encouraging to me.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Maybe you will only sell one player this summer

I have a question about this deal, can Satan kroenke pocket this money? or his shares just go up?

Ashburton fund when will it be released?

Arsenal's new £150m deal with Emirates will give the club extra money to spend on new players next summer, says chief executive Ivan Gazidis.

Dubai-based airline Emirates will pay Arsenal £30m per season for shirt and stadium sponsorship.

"This will be one of the biggest deals ever struck in the game of football," said Gazidis.

"We'll have additional money this financial year, which will be available to invest in the summer."

Arsenal originally signed a £90m contract with Emirates in 2004, covering eight years of shirt sponsorship (£48m) and 15 years of stadium naming rights (£42m) from 2006.

The Gunners currently receive £5.5m per year for shirt sponsorship, which is bettered by eight other Premier League sides, but once the new deal kicks in, they will only be eclipsed in England by Manchester United.

Arsene Wenger, who has been criticised for a perceived lack of spending, will have £40m available for new signings in January and the first £30m instalment from Emirates will arrive in time for the following transfer window.

"The deal is all about football, it's all about giving us the resources to be able to invest in what we put on to the field for our fans," said Gazidis, whose club have not won a trophy since 2005.

"This is an important and exciting day for our club. It is good news for Arsenal and our fans.

"The strategy, which has been driven and supported by [majority shareholder] Stan Kroenke and our board, is to grow our commercial revenues so that we can have more money to be able to invest in the playing side.

"This is as dramatic as the move into the new stadium [in 2006] was in propelling the club forward. Our revenues will grow to put us into the top five revenue clubs in the world."

Arsenal's last published accounts show a revenue of £235m, of which £52.5m was from commercial activities - a rise of just £4.4m (9%) since 2009.

Gazidis added: "We kept some powder dry in the summer, so we do have the ability to make a move or two in the January window, but that will be based as always on what Arsene believes is available in the window and the kind of moves he thinks might help us on the pitch.

"He's been an outstanding judge over time and he's the person we trust to do that."

Arsenal can also look forward to an improved kit supplier deal when their current contract with Nike expires in 2014.

Boutros Boutros, head of corporate communications at Emirates, said: "We would love Arsenal to win [trophies] and we hope this amount of money we are paying now will help them to invest more into the club.

"We strongly believe the club is very well positioned to win in the future and to excel."

Raptorgunner wrote:I have a question about this deal, can Satan kroenke pocket this money? or his shares just go up?

Ashburton fund when will it be released?

No he really can not just pocket the money. I believe that it would have to be distributed through dividends to all stock holders.

Having the contract should automatically make his shares worth more. This is sports and not business though. So how much or if it actually caused the stock prices to go up is speculative. I have seen many companies priced below cash value. These days stock prices have as much or more to do with the "feeling" on how well a company is doing rather than the actual numbers behind it. My guess is that the process of selling our best players every year has more of an affect on stock prices than the new contract. As it stands now it is feasible to look at the stock being worth less than what it was when satan bought the team. Since we have sold all the clubs prized assets and replaced them with inferior ones and in the process become less competitive.
As for the new deal I guess it is ok. Probably the best we could have got to be honest. To get a better deal you really have to be in a position that you have a wealthy fan that is ready to pay over the odds for the rights to be affiliated with the club. Or you need to be Winners sparking competition between companies wanting to be affiliated with you. Trying to be a little better than some but not really at the top. Never seems to help much.

Gazidis is full of shit, every year we hear the same, there is money for Wenger to spend.

Every year we hear the same things.
Gazidis says, Wenger has money available if he finds someone he wants.
Wenger says, I have a large team full of quality and I just don't think that there is anyone available that would improve the squad.

So either Wenger is complacent in the whole thing or he would be the dumbest manager around to allow Gazidas and the board to through the entirety of the blame at him.