NurembergVillan Posted April 23, 2018 Moderator Share Posted April 23, 2018 From what I can ascertain Fanatics (who are a $4bn company in their own right) have two strands to their relationship with Nike. They're an online retailer who therefore sell Nike product. They're also sharing rights to a some of the Nike deals such as the NBA. Nike make the player kit and the proper replica, and Fanatics make and sell the cheapest version. https://sgbonline.com/nba-replica-jerseys-to-be-reserved-for-fanatics/ Quote Beginning with the 2017/18 season, sales of replica NBA jerseys will be split between Fanatics and Nike, according to a report from the Sports Business Journal. Nike will sell authentic on-court jerseys for $300 each. Beginning in October, replica rights will be split between Nike offering a $110 Swingman replica jerseys while Fanatics will sell adult-sized replicas priced between $65 and $70. Final pricing is still being determined. Sales of the replica jerseys manufactured by Fanatics will be limited to Fanatic-affiliated sites as well as NBA-related website, team spots and arena shops. Fanatics was reportedly given the rights to lower-priced replica jerseys in part because it should be able to respond to “hot market” opportunities quicker than Nike. So it seems fanatics have their own manufacturing capabilities for kit-type product. My take on it would be that this has been designed by Luke and will have their branding, whilst Fanatics are manufacturing, distributing and selling through their own e-commerce and the Villa stores - both online and bricks and mortar. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeps Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 1 minute ago, Don_Simon said: This sounds like an innovative idea! Well done Villa. Also, have Recon been confirmed as our shirt sponsor for next season? Don’t we have Unibet for another year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astondalston Posted April 23, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2018 (edited) https://www.sportbusiness.com/sportbusiness-international/kit-parts-fanatics-shakes-sports-merchandising-market Historians may look back on 2016 as the year the three-way dynamic between sports rights-holders, their official kit suppliers and replica-kit-buying fans was reshaped. Matt Cutler looks at what’s driving change and what the implications could be for the three parties. WHEN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL’S (MLB) Chicago Cubs won their first World Series since 1908 last month, fans were able to celebrate in style by opening their Uber app. Not to book a taxi to Wrigley Field and join the party at Cubs HQ, but to get their hands on official merchandise that could be bought and delivered in a matter of minutes through the taxi app. Many saw the Uber initiative as a PR stunt, particularly given that an identical set-up took place three weeks earlier around the Los Angeles Rams’ first regular-season National Football League game at the Memorial Coliseum since 1979. But the reason it was successful goes much deeper than that: online retail giants such as Amazon have set new standards in the Western world with their next-day and even next-hour delivery services, putting a spotlight on just how antiquated the supply chains for sports merchandising are. This so-called ‘hot marketing’ – supplying merchandise in response to high levels of demand, more often than not in sport following an unanticipated on-pitch success of a team – is one of the elements of licensed sports merchandise provider Fanatics’ new partnership with the National Hockey League, signed at the tail end of October. In the reported 16-year deal starting from the 2017-18 campaign, Fanatics will continue to operate the league’s online retail platform – as it has been doing since 2005 – while it will become the official manufacturer of ‘hot-market merchandise’ around the Stanley Cup play-offs and final. That means during the season climax Fanatics can produce ‘commemorative’ gear that can be marketed and shipped immediately. Significantly, Fanatics’ deal also goes alongside one signed by sportswear giant Adidas last year. While Adidas will supply official on-ice uniforms for seven years from 2017-18, Fanatics will exclusively manufacture and supply replica jerseys, carrying the branding not of Adidas, but its Fanatics Branded division. There’s also been speculation around a similar deal with MLB, where, from 2020, Under Armour will reportedly produce on-pitch jerseys and Fanatics Branded replica jerseys with no Under Armour branding. With Fanatics Branded, which operates out of the San Francisco Bay Area under the stewardship of Raphael Peck – the former senior vice-president of product creation and merchandising for Under Armour – Fanatics has made a significant investment in digital printing to become a high-quality manufacturer of sports merchandise, rather than simply a distributor. And it’s seen by many in the sports retail sector as a game-changer. Market dynamics The structure of Fanatics and Adidas’ deals with the NHL – in particular the splitting of elite and replica supplier rights – is the result of several developments in the sports retail and merchandising space, and experts say it’s a model that could soon be adopted by major rights-holders across the world to help them overcome a number of challenges. Firstly, rights-holders are becoming frustrated with major sports brands’ inflexible supply chains. Typically, official kit suppliers produce replica kits and jerseys in batches months and even seasons in advance of them being available to fans through physical or online retail. This makes ‘hot marketing’ nigh-on impossible and means retailers often sell out of merchandise if a team does well, or are left with large amounts of stock at the end of the season that they have to sell at a discount. Big brands do make money from the replica business, but really they’re looking to drive other parts of their business by having a partnership with a major rights-holder Compare that with high-street fashion retailers – who replenish stock on an almost weekly basis according to fashion trends and what goods are selling well or not – and you can see how far sport has been left behind. Being able to react nimbly to spikes in consumer demand is a natural progression for sport and having a company specialising in fan merchandise to meet demand better is therefore attractive to a rights-holder. Secondly, sportswear brands are having to spend wallet-busting amounts to partner with the world’s biggest sports properties, as seen recently with Nike’s deal with football club Barcelona – costing Nike €155m ($168m) per year, according to mainstream media reports, blowing out of the water a previous record partnership between Adidas and Manchester United for around half that. Firms such as Nike and Adidas are paying a premium to be associated with the biggest and most iconic sports brands, and therefore are looking at new models that help them reduce or recoup their initial investments. Andy Anson – who as president of Fanatics International heads the company’s activities globally outside North America – also argues that the main element of a sportswear giant’s deal with a major team or league is marketing exposure, rather than the cash they can recoup through the sale of replica shirts, meaning they’re open to ways they can help bring costs down. “Big brands do make money from the replica business, but really they’re looking to drive other parts of their business by having a partnership with a major rights-holder,” says Anson, whose former roles in sport include commercial director of Manchester United and chief executive of the ATP World Tour in Europe. “This is why we believe the Fanatics-NHL model can work for other rights-holders,” he adds. “Adidas want the on-ice exposure to drive sales of other products like footwear, while we are geared towards creating fanwear. By splitting it in this way, we’re taking a lot of the risk away from them.” There’s a rights-holder angle here, too: as the bigger, more established rights-holders secure the more lucrative deals, second and third-tier properties are left to deal with less established sportswear brands that do not have the same financial muscle. This is causing a market fragmentation, which can be seen in the Premier League this season. Despite the global exposure that comes with being a Premier League team, clubs like Bournemouth (JD Sports), Crystal Palace, Stoke City (both Macron), Swansea (Joma) and Watford (Dryworld) have all signed less lucrative supplier deals with less familiar manufacturers. It is these types of clubs that will be most open to splitting their rights in the first instance, experts say, as they can offer more established brands a lower price point. Fans first It is of course the fans who, in theory at least, rights-holders and sportswear brands have at the top of their list when forming their retail strategies. The cost of replica kit has shot up globally over the last decade, with the average replica home English Premier League shirt – which almost always changes every single season – bought from the club shop for £49.68 (€57.78/$62.60) in 2015, according to the BBC’s annual Price of Football report. That represented a year-on-year increase alone of five per cent, with price increases partly down to brands offsetting increasing rights-fees on the fans. Splitting rights, therefore, should help reduce – or at least keep stable – the costs for replica-kit-buying fans. And ultimately it will be the fans who determine whether this new model works in the long term. Part of the reason fans rush to buy replica shirts and jerseys is because they want to express their support by wearing the exact gear their heroes are wearing on the pitch, track or rink. Will they be willing to buy fan merchandise – which is identical, albeit without, critically, the official performance brand’s logo – in the same volumes? Or will they see them as only a tier above fake replicas you can buy down the market or online for a fraction of the cost of their official counterparts? Watch this space, but it’s something Fanatics – and others – are conscious of. “Fan merchandise is where we have expertise and the Fanatics Branded logos are representative of a quality fan gear brand,” Anson says. “That’s why in the States we’ve been undertaking an advertising campaign to both drive fans to www.fanatics.com, but also to position the company as one that produces high-quality fan merchandise.” Edited April 23, 2018 by astondalston Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nath182 Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Their Trust Pilot reviews look terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Does each shirt come with a complementary ASBO? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dn1982 Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 17 minutes ago, deeps said: How long is the deal? Not a fan of this myself. Seems a bit tacky. Macron MK 2 Being a Championship club we’d be lucky to get a decent deal off of the top lot but looking into this it might be the future for club s below the top tier. Ultimately if the kit is mint we will not care and it seems fanatics produce top quality gear and are massive in the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 7 minutes ago, Nath182 said: Their Trust Pilot reviews look terrible. To be fair 600 odd reviews all being shit when they provide tens of millions of jerseys to sports fans all across America. Those sites are always to be taken with a pinch of salt as happy customers tend not to post. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eastie Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 35 minutes ago, alreadyexists said: Cool, Fanatics are affiliated with NFL, NHL, NBA and the MLB... that’s pretty good. Exciting opportunity for them and us. Fanatics were doing the online sales last season of the kit too - they took over kitbag based in Manchester and sell online merchandise for several clubs 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Logos and so on look shite. However having watched Luke Organs interview a few months ago he seems to be very switched on. Will save my comments and cross my fingers till they come out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omariqy Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 I got told last night that the away kit is beautiful! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alreadyexists Posted April 23, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2018 15 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said: Logos and so on look shite. However having watched Luke Organs interview a few months ago he seems to be very switched on. Will save my comments and cross my fingers till they come out. I don’t mind the Fanatics ‘F’ logo, that’s not too bad. The Luke one is garbage though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 All seems a bit odd doesn't it?! There goes my Adidas dream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Rob182 Posted April 23, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted April 23, 2018 On 19/04/2018 at 13:18, dn1982 said: The bloke behind Luke Is a Villa fan But what about Luke himself? 4 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eastie Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 35 minutes ago, omariqy said: I got told last night that the away kit is beautiful! Any idea what colour ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoony Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Just google Luke1977 and now I feel like I want to down a special brew and nick a Ford Fiesta 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rubberman Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Interesting deal. Had never heard of Luke and not expecting much having looked at their aesthetic. In theory the speed to market means the club could bring out a specific Playoffs kit (or Champions league final kit) - (well - subject to league rules on kits) which would be interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Not sure its as special as the initial press release hinted at. I really like it. Regardless of what you think of the designers clothes, to have a villa fan design the kit is much better than a standard template from the big companies. Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 7 minutes ago, DCJonah said: Not sure its as special as the initial press release hinted at. I really like it. Regardless of what you think of the designers clothes, to have a villa fan design the kit is much better than a standard template from the big companies. Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with. True, I could be wrong, but I think we will get more money out of it somehow. Having a closer relationship with the maker/distributor could mean we get a larger share of profits as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 (edited) I don't really care tbh, when I go to games I wear my 1982 European Cup final shirt, I feel like I'm 'too old' to be overly bothered about kits. What I will say is that the kits churned out by Nike and Adidas are utter shit these days, absolutely lazy design with little differentiation. If this 'Luke Sport' (who I've never heard of) along with it's Villa fan designer can come up with something that looks good and most importantly looks different to the monotonous shite out there then this will be a great idea and I may even be tempted to buy one. Edited April 23, 2018 by Dr_Pangloss 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Upper north stander Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 On 18/04/2018 at 00:01, mikeyp102 said: I’ve seen this mentioned somewhere else as well... itk? Ye called it know Luke from Sunday morning football for our local pub team back in the day UTV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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