When "surprise" champion Leicester City lifted the Premier League trophy, two corporate partners also "had good reason to celebrate" -- Leicester's kit maker Puma and its shirt sponsor King Power, according to Josh Noble of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Both are "likely to have struck bargain basement rights deals with the Midlands club, only to ride an unimaginable wave of media coverage as the minnows conquered all." Leicester's "unexpected good fortune comes at a time when the cost of kit and sponsorship deals has been rising rapidly." ManU "set the tone" when it switched from Nike to adidas kits in '13, in a deal worth about £75M a year. Barcelona "did even better." The Spanish club extended its Nike supply deal and it "doubled its annual revenue" to more than €150M ($170.5M) a year. Synergy Sponsorship Chief Strategy Officer Carsten Thode said, "I think shirt deals were undervalued for a long time. But in the past three years, the value of these deals has escalated quickly." Kit deal costs have "risen as viewing figures have soared and clubs’ clout on social media has grown." The top 32 teams in Europe have a combined Twitter following of almost 600 million, according to KPMG, while Nike, adidas and Puma, the top three sportswear makers, "can only muster" a combined 67 million. Meanwhile "challenger brands such as Under Armour and New Balance have pushed up the competition for kit deals." Total shirt sponsorship fees earned by clubs in Europe’s top six divisions "have more than doubled" since '10 to €830M last season, according to data from Repucom. Revenue increased 45 percent in the past two years alone. England's Premier League "takes the largest chunk of that, roughly the same as the German Bundesliga, Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A combined." Those in rights management say that "football’s pull as a live spectator sport with a broad and dedicated worldwide following has given it a special place in international marketing." Chime Communications CEO Christopher Satterthwaite said, "If you look at the advertising world, audiences are becoming more fragmented and diversified, so to reach a mass audience is increasingly difficult. Football attracts more eyeballs than anything that's ever existed" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 6/3).
