THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Was about to post the same thing! Will be interesting to see what impact the delays, compounded by the cost of living squeeze and (in our case) shite designs, has on salea overall.

As for Castore - having initially quite liked the kits (especially the trim).and being desperate for us to leave Errea, I now share the views on here that they are the worst kits we have ever had. Far worse than 18-19 or any others being mentioned.

Its such a shame as without the oil / guano they would be really smart

As for the rest - club shop etc - I'll reserve judgement until I next visit in a month or so. I would never have bought it online anyway regardless of design as the sizing is so unpredictable.

Late releases are nothing new when it comes to supply issues. Who else remembers 14/15 where the team didn't even have the red kit until October?

It's hard to disagree about the current Castore issues even as someone that likes the kits (just not the pricing).

Calling them worse than 18/19 is hilarious though. The gold stripes were hideous.

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Cuboid of bum fluff

I've created a poll, let's see what everyone thinks:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7853

We the fans are not the target audience for the kits. I have had on good authority that Castore stuff is amazing for it's intended use (running around in) but you pay a premium price. Yeah the kits are shit. Yeah the cost is OTT but if it is more comfy for the players then that is probably what they were going for. It would be interesting to see how many are wearing it on Saturday.

I'm going with 16 people

If that were true, clubs wouldn't release a new kit every season. Revenue is a huge driver behind kits. Obviously the fit/feel is more important for the players but the revenue generated from sales is still important.

You've also got to look at the next generation of fans as well, which is why I'm so pissed off that currently the smallest size you can buy is aged 8. Getting your first football kit is a big thing and also a factor in who you end up supporting. Its important for the club to be selling shirts not just for revenue, but to draw in local kids to support their local team.

Now that they've dropped the price to £50, they are in line with a lot of other brands. Castore, Macron, Puma and Umbro are all putting out league 1 and league 2 kits for £50 give or take a quid, while Nike are charging £55 for the Portsmouth shirt. Having said that, Salford City's Castore shirt is £55!

It's completely the opposite. A 2020 article states that clubs only get 7.5% of shirt sales. So the reason why they make kits every season is so they can get people spending every year. So on a £50 shirt the club is only making £3.75 and this article is the Premier League so we might get even less. If they didn't make kits every season they wouldn't make anything really. Obviously, this is a two year old article, but I can't imagine there has been much change.

https://www.goal.com/en/news/how-much-money-do-football-clubs-make-from-shirt-sales/gv14e9wc0vny1vtyr0rxqqan5

As for your situation I wouldn't worry yet. The BBC article posted earlier shows that there is a countrywide problem with kits so you would like to think they would sort their shit out soon enough (I hope).

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't manufacturer's pay an upfront fee in order to make the kits? I know this is definitely the case for elite clubs. So I'd assume if we sold more shirts, we could demand more for the contracts, and maybe from the shirt sponsors too? So whilst we may get a small commission per shirt, we want more shirt sales to generate better income from the sponsors contracts

Clubs pretty much only make direct money from the sale of a shirt when they sell it through their own club shop. So we will make £5-10 or whatever the mark up is (except for Liverpool who have a different deal with Nike).

We'll also make money from the shirt manufacturer as a lump sum to give them the privilege to make the shirts.

But, as you say, we can also command a higher fee from the shirt sponsor if more people buy the shirts and therefore they get greater exposure. Same applies to a fee paid by the shirt manufacturer to the club.
Clubs like us who'll sell so few shirts each season won't get much of a fee though.