Puma Takes Premier League Champions Manchester City From Nike
Puma CEO says the partnership with the team is ‘the largest deal that we have ever done’
BERLIN— Puma SE PUM 2.80% will become the official uniform supplier to reigning English Premier League champions Manchester City, taking one of soccer’s most prized assets from industry leader Nike Inc.
The deal announced on Thursday is among Puma’s most aggressive marketing moves as it seeks to revitalize its image from industry laggard to fresh-faced brand. It recently relaunched its basketball offering, signing the top two overall 2018 NBA draft picks, Deandre Ayton and Marvin Bagley III, and became an NBA marketing partner this month.
Terms and length of the Manchester City deal, which begins with the 2019-2020 season, weren’t disclosed, though Puma Chief Executive Bjorn Gulden said the partnership was “the largest deal that we have ever done.”
Outfitting City will significantly upgrade Puma’s position in soccer and compensate for the pending expiration of a deal with rival club Arsenal. City has been one of the most successful teams in English soccer in recent seasons, and it features some of the game’s best-known players and receives acclaim for playing an attractive, attacking style of soccer. It currently ranks second in the Premier League standings in a close-watched race with Liverpool.
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Typically, multiyear partnerships between top-flight soccer clubs and sportswear makers run in the high hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2014, Adidas AG offered more than $100 million a year to Manchester United , wresting the rights to one of English soccer’s most successful clubs from Nike.
Thursday’s deal is the latest in a flurry of top Premier League clubs changing brands in recent years, including Manchester United, Chelsea, Leicester City, Tottenham, and Arsenal.
It wasn’t immediately known whether Nike had tried to keep City in its stable. The Beaverton, Ore.-based sportswear maker backed away from re-signing Manchester United in 2014 when Adidas offered more than Nike was willing to pay, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The arms race for English soccer echoes a similar battle between the big sportswear brands for U.S. college sports contracts, all of which offer companies like Nike, Adidas and Under Armour Inc. credibility in varsity sports, while clubs and universities bank on sponsorship revenue and merchandise. The escalating value of U.S. college deals has grown so fast that it’s weighed on results for Under Armour, which began restructuring in 2017.
Puma’s renewed sports push comes in the wake of French luxury conglomerate Kering spinning off most of its controlling stake in the German sportswear maker. The move prompted changes in Puma’s governance structure and enabled the company to return to the midcap DAX exchange in Germany in June.
Puma reported a 12% rise in revenue to €4.6 billion ($5.4 billion) for the year ended in 2018, while net earnings rose 37% to €230 million.
Write to Sara Germano at sara.germano@wsj.com