‘Barça’ licenses, a € 63M business hit by the coronavirus

The retail sale of licensed products, a business that generates about 63 million euros a year FC Barcelona, is also being hit by the coronavirus, although lThe Barça entity still does not know what exactly the losses that the pandemic will leave.

The club recovered, in July 2018, the direct exploitation of the retail, licensing and marketing of the Barça brand, that the last sixteen years had been managed by Nike.

In order to protect his brand image and generate new income, he created the company BLM (Barça Licensing and Merchandising), which currently manages six of its own stores (Camp Nou, Passeig de Gracia, La Roca Village, Airport T2, Airport T1 and the recently opened one on the Rambla in Barcelona).

This business unit, which employs about 330 people and has become strategic for the clubIt also has eleven other licensed stores, 328 licensees and more than 7,000 licensed products.

However, the health emergency has hit its economy hard, like any other sector, and The 17 stores that sell official club products have been closed since the government decreed the state of alarm.

When the pandemic passes, the uncertainty about when the competitions will resume and the logical and predictable fall of tourism -two factors that significantly increase turnover- will only slow down the recovery.

However, sources from FC Barcelona have assured EFE that the objective is, as far as possible, to avoid an ERTE that affects not only BLM employees but the rest of the club's employees. Although all the scenarios are being considered, there is still no decision made.

On the other hand, the entity continues working on the salary reductions of the players that they militate in the teams of their professional sports with the purpose that, if finally it is necessary to raise possible non-sports affectations, they have the least possible impact.