How much is a Barça shirt worth ?

I saw an interesting article this week in the newspapers, which stated that the store at Camp Nou generates more income for Nike than their flagship store in New York City - 35 Million Euros against 31 Million in the Big Apple. So Nike have already made back their investment of the reported 30 Million per year deal - not to mention the amazing amount of branding with all the Neymar Jr and Messi t-shirts. That's not to mention the sales elsewhere of all the Barça shirts - there's a Nike store on Las Ramblas, which I'd bet does a fair trade, as well as so many others around the world.

It makes me wonder just how much they'd be making if they could stem the influx of all the copy t-shirts in the souvenir shops in and around Las Ramblas area. I've been amazed at the quality of the copies over recent years, with real looking tickets with Nike holograms and everything. There are sometimes very subtle differences such as the disappearance of the catalan flag on a sleeve detail for example, of the badge at the bottom of the strip a couple of years ago, but they are generally so good. People are easily confused too. With Barça being one of those teams that changes strips every season, many tourists come in the summer, and buy the "old" strip from either the previous year, or the league season that has just finished. Those store owners aren't daft either - if they can shift some old stock for today's price, they're laughing.

Another fact from the same article relates to the runaway success of the away "senyera" strip this year - for every three shirts sold, two are the away strip, and the buyers "know it's a representation of the Catalan Flag". At least they seem to have taken notice after ditching last year's hugely unpopular orange and yellow tie-die combo. What do you reckon? One of the best shirts this year? Better than the original home? Let me know in the comments!

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