This was one of the biggest exposures in world sport, certainly in recent years: the scoop of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, which revealed the details of Lionel Messi’s current contract in Barcelona, provoked quite a few waves – and mutual anger, whether from Barça’s management signing such a contract. And whether it was Messi himself who scooped up insane and disproportionate sums. But alongside the criticisms, there are those who want to shed another light: to confront the sums that Barcelona spent on Messi, what the “flea” returned to the club – the other side.
According to a study conducted by Forbes, with the help of his professional abilities, Messi returned quite a bit of the investment. For example, 2 million Messi shirts are sold every year by Barcelona, for a price ranging from 100 to 200 dollars. Every year, Barça makes $ 45 million (or 37 million euros) in profits from shirt sales alone, and if you count Messi’s share – at the marketing level alone, it provides it with 71 million euros (more than half the amount, according to the contract, Barça invested in ).
Shall we continue? Messi is, of course, the leading player in Barcelona – which also makes him a huge marketing attraction – in terms of ticket sales, broadcasting rights and various sponsorships, the sums that Messi is worth for Barcelona can reach 145 million euros (more than his salary!). And all this, without counting the social networks, when every Barça post dealing with Messi – naturally – gets a lot more shares and insane viral success.
In total, according to estimates, Barcelona earns more than 300 million euros a year just because of Messi. In the last four years, in which she paid Messi over half a billion euros, more than 1.2 billion euros were recorded in the revenue column, which was achieved thanks to the achievements that Flea brought. “This is a disgraceful attempt by the management to blame Messi,” read one of the fan accounts that published the estimates, “and to cover their mistakes, in shifting the blame towards the star, who has carried the club for so many years, and in our opinion – worth every penny he earned.”
📝💸 Since there have been a lot of accusations about Messi’s wages and how his ‘138 million euros’ wage bill is the primary reason for Barca’s heavy financial debt, here’s a look at how much revenue Messi generates for FC Barcelona.🔴🔵: [A Thread] ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/URECrBdDP8
– Managing Barça (@ManagingBarca) January 31, 2021
In addition, in an attempt to provide proportion, in England they examined how high Messi’s contract is – in the ranking of the ten most prestigious contracts of American sports as a whole. Inside the list, by the way, there is only one more footballer – Messi’s best friend, Neymar who is ranked fifth, with the majority of course belonging to American sports, including second place on the list: there, is Patrick Humasses, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback who is going to compete next week (456 million euros).
After Messi and Humos, in third place is Mike Trout, a Los Angeles-based player in the American Baseball League, with 387 million euros; Fourth boxer Canello Alvarez, with 331 million and the top five closes Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain with a total value of 315 million euros.
Full rating: (Estimated amounts, in euros for comparison)
1. Lionel Messi (football) – 558 million euros
2. Patrick Mehomes (football) – 456 million euros
3. Mike Trout (Baseball) – 387 million euros
4. Canello Alvarez (boxing) – 331 million euros
5. Neymar (football) – 315 million euros
6. Bryce Harper (baseball) – 299 million euros
7. Jan Carlo Stanton (Baseball) – 295 million euros
8. Gerrit Cole (baseball) – 292 million euros
9. Manny Macado (baseball) – 270 million euros
10. Nolan Arnado (baseball) – 235 million euros
