Beginning of a weblog

Introduction

My name is Vishwa Autar.

Im 21 years old and live in The Haque.

 

Currently I study Commercial economics at The Haque University.

For an English assignment we have to make a weblog consisting 12 blogs each having 250 words.

It can also be 500 words for each 6 blogs.

For this assignment I have decided to write about FC Barcelona.

I have been a soccer fan for quite a bit now, and that’s why I wanted to write my blog about soccer.

I chose FC Barcelona because I think it is possibly the best soccer club in the world.

I can’t just write about FC Barcelona, it has to be marketing related in some way.

Popularity

Let’s start with something I read recently.

The topic says: “FC Barcelona Most Popular Football Club”

FC Barcelona has over 57.9 million fans worldwide.

Real Madrid, another great team has only 31.3 million fans.

Manchester United has 30.6 million fans.

You can see that FC Barcelona is very popular among soccer fans, but also with people that just watch soccer.

In Spanish football FC Barcelona has the most impressive results.

They won the Champions League four times already.

The FIFA Club World Cup one time.

The King’s Cup (Copa del Rey) 25 times.

The Spanish League 21 times and the Spanish Super Cup (Supercopa de España) 10 times

Knowing this, big companies like Nike, Adidas, Burger King, KFC Etc.

Will sponsor players for huge amounts of money and with a lot of merchandise

The companies want to link their product to the great players, therefor the players get paid very well to make a commercial.

Lionel Messi

The new Diego Maradona

Full name: Lionel Andres Messi

Birthday: 1987/06/24

Place of Birth: Rosario, Argentina

Height: 1.69 m (5 ft 61⁄2 in)

Weight: 67 kg

Position: Attacking midfielder/ Forward

Nickname(s):  "the new Diego Maradona", The Flea

Wife / girlfriend: Antonella Rocuzzo

Lives in: Barcelona

Lionel Andres Messi possibly the best soccer player in the world.

Never give up

Lionel Messi made a commercial for Adidas, named Impossible Is Nothing.

In this commercial Messi talks about struggles he had to face when he was a kid.

When Lionel Messi was 11 years old, he had problems with his growth hormones.

He needed treatment to develop his body normally.

They gave him injections in both his legs; he had to do this every day for three years.

Because of the growth hormones he couldn’t grow normally, when he was 11 years old he looked like a 8 year old kid.

But this didn’t stop him.

He worked hard and made something negative into something positive.

Positive change

With this commercial Adidas draws the attention from a lot of different people.

This helps Adidas to change or maintain the image of a social company.

The commercial shows Lionel Messi talking about his personal life, but didn’t give up, and now he’s the best player in the world.

So when people see this ad, they will relate that feeling, that emotion with Adidas

and this is a very strong message.

But it doesn’t stop there, because this commercial is uploaded on Youtube, Break.com and other video sharing websites and social media.

People can talk about this, and share their opinions.

Sometimes these comments are negative, but most of these comments are positive.

Because this commercial is touching and tells something about Lionel Messi’s personal life.

People will share the video for others to watch and then the video becomes viral.

All this video sharing, and talking about the commercial in the comment section, is free publicity for Adidas.

Nike & Adidas

Brand awareness

In the previous weblog I discussed the commercial that Lionel Messi made for Adidas.

In this blog I’m going to talk about the biggest sponsors in the soccer business.

When you watch a soccer game, you get overwhelmed with ads, commercials, billboards and more.

But the biggest sponsors are the one that you don’t easily see.

It doesn’t look like much but.

On almost every shirt, shoe and shorts you will see the Adidas logo or the Nike logo.

Most of the times you will see the Swoosh from Nike, or the three stripes from Adidas.

These logos are small and hard to see.

But not knowing you get constantly confronted with these logos.

Sponsoring

The club represents the brand their wearing.

So when a club reaches great achievements, the sponsor will also share these successes.

Apart the clothing sponsoring, these companies like Nike, Adidas also sell club shirts for the fans and selling these club shirts is a direct profit for the company.

When you look at the top 10 teams of the UEFA you learn that only Nike and Adidas represent that list.

Manchester being Nr. 1 is sponsored by Nike.

Followed by FC Barcelona and also sponsored by Nike.

Nr. 3 is Chelsea which is sponsored by Adidas.

And Nr. 4 Bayern Munchen is also sponsored by Adidas.

Nr. 5 is Liverpool sponsored by Adidas.

Nr. 6 is Arsenal sponsored by Nike.

Nr. 7 is Real Madrid sponsored by Adidas.

Nr. 8 is FC Porto sponsored by Nike.

Nr. 9 is Internazionale (Inter Milan) sponsored by Nike.

And Nr. 10 is AC Milan sponsored by Adidas.

Puma Umbro And Reebok

The other sponsors

The remarkable thing is that these two sponsors Nike and Adidas aren’t the only one that sponsor teams and players.

There’s also Puma, Umbro, Reebok, Lotto and Diadora, but all these sponsors have less power in this business.

Only in the World top 10 of FIFA you see that also other companies then Adidas and Nike have a place in this list.

At Nr. 1 there is Spain sponsored by Adidas

Nr. 2 is The Netherlands sponsored by Nike.

Nr. 3 is Brazil sponsored by Nike

Nr. 4 is Germany sponsored by Adidas

Nr. 5 is Argentina sponsored by Adidas

Finally at Nr. 6 you see that Great Brittan is sponsored by Umbro.

Nr. 7 is Uruguay sponsored by Puma

Nr. 8 is Portugal sponsored by Nike

Nr. 9 is Italy sponsored by Puma

And Nr. 10 is Croatia sponsored by Nike

The big boys

So it’s clear that Nike and Adidas kind of control who they want to sponsor and which players.

Nike and Adidas have a lot money to spend, they can sign a player to make commercials for them for years.

So other companies can’t use these top players in their ads.

So it is understandable that when customers like you and me go shopping for shoes clothing or other sport products. Our first choice most of the time will be Nike or Adidas.

Other than Puma, Umbro, Reebok, Lotto or Diadora.