AC Milan’s fourth kits for the 2024-25 season were certainly divisive, but the club’s commercial side is only going one way: upwards.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport write, the fourth shirt sold out in a matter of days despite the fact that it received very mixed reviews, with some believing that it showed disrespect towards the sacred colours of Milan.
Launched in mid-February, the kit was purchased 70% by people in the 20-29 age group and 75% outside Italy. Business went so well that February went down in the archives as the best month ever for e-commerce at Milan, surpassing last December when the 125th anniversary shirt was launched.
The uniform contains a far from trivial message: designed in the days of the racist insults in Udine against Maignan, its key element is 1963, the year of Martin Luther King’s famous speech and the first European Cup won by Milan.
It is a jersey that was the result of the collaboration – started in 2022 – with Off-White, a fashion brand with an urban and streetwear style that is loved by young people. It is the symbol of a policy that the American Milan, like it or not, has been stubbornly pursuing for a few years.
RedBird Capital’s aim is positioning the Rossoneri at the intersection of sport, lifestyle, fashion and culture, for a commercial logic. Milan returned to being the Italian club with the highest turnover, around €400m without capital gains, and a good part of the credit goes to the commercial segment.
The commercial department has grown from €57m in revenue in 2018-19 to €143m in 2023-24, andit is also due to the merchandising department (the sale of products), of which 70% is generated by the kits.
A few years ago, the merchandising side had a turnover of €6m and last season generated €32m. In the current financial year, despite the disappointments on the field, it will close with a turnover of over €40m.
Within Milan this is the freshest and most dynamic area, which since 2020 has been led by Valerio Rocchetti and since 2022 has taken over the direct management of online sales of goods, by virtue of the internalisation of e-commerce.
For them, the kid who struggles to keep his eyes glued to the screen for 90 minutes is just as important as the elderly fan who is faithful to tradition. Indeed, if you want to broaden the catchment area, the way forward is through an extension in terms of age and geography.
Already now almost 55% of purchases come from abroad. In the future the club’s global vocation will be increasingly supported, also through the opening of franchise stores, with the aim of reaching €90m in revenues from merchandising-licensing within five years.
It all fits into a vision: making Milan grow in the name of sustainability, increasing organic revenues in order to generate more cash and thus increase investments in the squad.
With TV rights intermediated by UEFA and Serie A, and waiting for the stadium project to take off, the commercial area is where the club can exercise greater control and where it can afford to dare, even at the cost of pushing the rules of marketing to the extreme.
