When English soccer giants Manchester United published their financial results for the 2024-25 accounting period earlier this week, one standout figure was the growth in merchandising revenue, which accounted for £144.9 million ($197.6 million).
Earlier in 2025, PSG set a new record for merchandise sales with partner Fanatics after winning the UEFA Champions League. Merchandise, as it stands, is, as always, massive business for soccer clubs.
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In recent years, this has evolved, as sports jerseys and other associated apparel have penetrated the world of fashion, and rich storytelling has become the key to wide-ranging marketing campaigns undertaken by both clubs and kit manufacturers, which see a club’s history as the key value-add to bridging the gap with consumers.
Leveraging this history into monetization has become a key target for clubs, as the scramble for revenue generation necessitated by the modern game’s financial power dynamics sees stakeholders prioritize sales, and finding increasingly new categories to maximize.
While matchday shirts have long been the keystone of this approach, a new paradigm in that sector has become increasingly prominent in recent years, game-worn kits, spurred on by businesses such as Matchwornshirt.com, which offer fans an even closer connection to their respective teams’ stars.
Since its foundation in 2017, over 350 soccer clubs and organizations have partnered with Matchwornshirt.com, including Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Chelsea, and most recently, Bayern Munich.
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By GlobalDataDespite the exclusive nature of its product, the business has proven a hit for its partners. Now, James Flude, Matchwornshirt.com’s head of business, speaks to Sportcal to discuss the changing dynamic of the sports merchandising industry and the company’s place in it.
Sports merchandising has grown as an industry in recent years. What are the most prominent trends that you have seen, and how is the industry going to change in the future?
Flude: “Given our unique position within the market, we’ve seen a clear shift from traditional retail to more dynamic, emotional, and story-driven merchandising. The overwhelming global demand for multi-category sports merchandise has enabled rights holders to be more innovative and open with the products that they offer and the platforms on which they do so.
“Naturally, we have been a beneficiary of this shift, because I think that even 10-20 years ago, the idea that you could take shirts from a dressing room and deliver them to fans around the world would have been unfathomable.
“As this evolution continues, we expect more real-time merchandising strategies, personalised fan engagement, and even deeper integration between on-pitch moments and collectible merchandise. We foresee that tech will play an increasingly pivotal role in enhancing the club-to-fan relationship, which is also why we developed Fabricks NFC-chip technology to enhance our own offering.”
How important is the merchandising side of the business to revenue generation at major sports teams?
“Merchandising has moved from being a secondary income stream to a core pillar of revenue. For the world’s most prestigious clubs, it drives multi-millions annually, not just from shirt sales but from exclusive drops, collaborations, and exclusive releases.
“As a long-standing football fan, the more niche campaigns in recent years – like Arsenal’s link up with Me Old China last season – genuinely excite me and demonstrate the importance of this evolution.
“Merchandising is no longer only about mass production, high volume sales, but about properly connecting with specific audiences within a fanbase. It fuels global fan growth and reinforces brand identity. And in an era where matchday income is capped and broadcast deals fluctuate, merchandising offers scalable, high-margin revenue that rights holders can count on. When done right, it can deepen fan loyalty at the same time. Everyone’s a winner…”
How does MatchwornShirt facilitate that?
“From a rights holder perspective, we give clubs the ability to monetize their matchday in a completely new way, by commercialising what is one of the most prestigious – and therefore valuable – assets of all; the shirts worn by the players on the pitch. We manage the full process end-to-end, from logistics and UV-cleansing protocols, to storytelling and global delivery – in essence, making it as easy as possible for our partners, once the shirts have been collected.
“For fans, we are a facilitator of a transaction directly from the pitch and the player to their front door – and provide a guarantee of authenticity and digital ownership through Fabricks that protects their investments for life.
What do clubs gain from the partnership?
“Beyond benefitting from a significant new revenue stream, clubs gain something that is harder to quantify but just as valuable – emotional and consistent fan engagement. Supporters are no longer passive consumers; they become an intrinsic facet of the matchday narrative.
“Given that 90% of our auctions go live from kick-off and focus primarily on players’ first-half shirts, MatchWornShirt provides an extremely unique way to connect with global fanbases, who can place bids on shirts whilst they are still being played in.
“Our partners also benefit from a highly engaged collectors database of 450,000+ customers and the global marketing reach that we bring, extensive data insights and analysis, consistent content and creative provision, and a best-in-class international sales platform. It’s a zero-risk, high-reward proposition, with flexibility to align with key calendar moments such as charity campaigns, anniversaries, and high-profile fixtures.”
What types of clubs does MatchWornShirt target? Are there differences in the offerings between different teams?
“We are extremely proud of the unique and diverse range of global partners that we have developed over the past seven years. Out of 300+ rights holders, honestly, pretty much every contract is different in one way or another, and it is our job as a partner to find the partnership structure that works for every club that we work with.
“The sweet spot here is in finding the balance between commercial appeal for the partner and the amount of product that we bring to the market. We strongly believe that this is the most unique, gold-standard product in sports memorabilia – and it’s therefore our responsibility to make sure that we get the supply that meets the demand for every partner.
“Whilst for an international football association or a top Premier League club, there is overwhelming demand for every shirt from every game, we also develop bespoke partnership structures to work with clubs at all levels of the sporting hierarchy.
“Our approach is tailored to fit each club’s needs, whether it’s reaching a global fan base or unlocking value from a highly engaged local audience. But irrespective of the structure, the product offering remains the same – authentic, match-worn shirts. And it’s a product that every single fanbase wants to get their hands on.”
Now, with the recent Portugal partnership, national federations are becoming involved too. How do those non-soccer entity markets differ?
“National federations have always been a big focus for us – and we’ve had long-standing charity agreements with the Croatian FA and the KNVB (Dutch FA), which, as a company founded and based in Amsterdam, has always been a huge source of pride for us.
“The increased openness to partnerships of this kind from international federations is a direct example of the evolution that I touched on earlier in this interview. Historically, the merchandise offering from international FAs has been even more limited than at club level, as revenues would be incredibly seasonal and often tournament-dictated.
“It’s an evolution that excites us, because we recognise that for fans – just like players – there is nothing more meaningful than the shirt of your country. At the time of writing, Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal shirt from the Armenia game has just surpassed our record and currently sits at €71,000 (the shirt eventually sold for $83,800, a Matchwornshirt record).
“We are seeing this evolution across all sporting disciplines, not just in football – and have launched successful agreements with the Swedish Ice Hockey team, West Indies Cricket, the British and Irish Lions, and the French Rugby Federation in the past year; all institutions each with distinctly unique fan cultures but a shared appetite for meaningful, authenticated memorabilia.”
