Barcelona Launches Barça Licensing & Merchandising

Barcelona will on July 1 recover its retail and licensing rights, 17 years after ceding them to Nike-owned FCBMerchandising, according to SPORT. Starting next season, the club's retail operation will be run by its own organization, Barça Licensing & Merchandising. Barcelona will "directly manage" the control of its brand: sales, official licensing and the commercialization of all its products. This is expected to mean "greater economic profitability." Barcelona's current merchandising business consists of three stores it owns and 15 licensed stores. There are more than 7,000 licensed Barcelona products, which generate around €65M ($76.3M) per year in sales (SPORT, 6/11).