Messi's departure has had negative impacts, directly affecting Barca's revenues. The main area where the Argentine has always created value for Barca is commercial revenue and shirt sales that are being heavily affected.
According to statistics in previous seasons, for every 10 Barcelona jerseys sold, there were 8 jerseys with the superstar Messi on the back and number 10. The revenue from selling this shirt helps the Catalan team earn from 20 million Euros to 30 million Euros per season. But this season is falling into an extremely gloomy position.
If in France, PSG launched 150,000 Messi jerseys on the market on August 11, and "sold out" in just 7 minutes, then in Barcelona, shirt sales decreased by 80%. Not to mention that many fans who have booked have also canceled their orders because their idols have left, Diario AS reported.
In addition, according to Marca, a large number of Messi-named jerseys in the 2021-2022 season have been withdrawn from the entire product line by Barcelona club because they no longer have this superstar and they have to deal with this problem with the sponsor to return a huge number of jerseys.
Barca will have about 2 months to return Messi's jerseys in the 2021/22 season to Nike's multinational headquarters in North America. This is the standard process for jerseys that have been printed before a player leaves the club.
In addition to the jersey, Barca's box office also witnessed a sluggish situation when the opening match of this team only sold half of the tickets. Barca will have a match to start the new season against Real Sociedad at Nou Camp on August 16.
This match has about 30,000 tickets distributed, but up to this point, only 15,280 tickets have been purchased by fans. This is very unusual because in previous seasons, when Messi was present, tickets were always sold very well.
