Barcelona - sponsored?

**Dodge** · 06/11/2006, 1:28 PM

They say that the Catalan TV thing is public service. As do esanyol

**Dodge** · 06/11/2006, 2:31 PM

Originally Posted by John83

They were in serious financial difficulty a few years back, so even with all that success, they may still be a little cautious about spending.

As I understand it, the members' fees covered the shirt sponsorship anyway, but they seem to be happy to have it both ways.

Pity to see it disappear though. It was a nice touch.

Depends what you mean by covered. There's 100,000+ members paying �120 a year (roughly) but they'd earn more through Spanish TV rights than that, never mind Champions League rights etc. Laporte's point of view is that If they had that �12m plus another �15m a year from Coca Cola (or whatever) they'd be unstoppable.

What some of the tradiotanlists are pushing for are that companies like Coca Cola and the other current "partners" stump up �1m each for exclusive sponsorship agreements rather than the paltry amounts they currently pay (have heard its as little as �100k for the big deals - Coke, Estrella Damm) to make up for that sponsorship shortfall. (Shortfall as other members' clubs also have megabucks deals - Real, Bayern etc)

I think they'd lose out on loads and loads of shirt sales as having a sponsor on it makes it at least 100 times less attractive