Top 20 Premier League Clubs Most Likely To Burn A Hole In Your Pocket

This is one of those league tables where football fans may not want their club to do that well since it could indicate how greedy a club is. But football today is a business, and when it comes down to the business of making money, commercial departments are extremely vital.

Other than doing sponsorship deals, a chief role of a football club’s commercial department is to generate revenue through merchandise, i.e. football shirts.

So EPL Talk decided to take a closer look at all 20 Premier League clubs to see how well they did in launching their new home and away football shirts, making sure they were available on time and getting them to market as early as possible.

The top 20 commercial departments at Premier League clubs this summer are:

1. Tottenham Hotspur, 20 points
2. Liverpool, 20
3. Stoke City, 20
4. Sunderland, 20
5. Hull City, 20
6. Portsmouth, 20
7. Chelsea, 15
8. Aston Villa, 15
9. Manchester City, 15
10. Arsenal, 15
11. Middlesbrough, 15
12. West Ham United, 15
13. Wigan Athletic, 10
14. Fulham, 10
15. Newcastle United, 7.5
16. Manchester United, 7.5
17. Everton, 5
18. Bolton Wanderers, 5
19. Blackburn Rovers, 5
20. West Bromwich Albion, 0

When clubs had the same number of points, they were then ranked in order of how early the shirts were launched to the public. So, for example, Tottenham unveiled their new home, away and third shirts on May 6, while sixth place Portsmouth (also on the same 20 points as Spurs) only officially unveiled their new home shirt last week. See the rest of the scoring system at the foot of this article.

While Tottenham did an admirable job at launching their new kits in early May, the commercial departments at other clubs haven’t gotten their act together. West Brom has still to officially unveil their new home and away shirts for the upcoming season, which means that the club are missing out on golden opportunities to earn revenue from shirt sales. This is despite the fact that EPL Talk readers saw the leaked pictures of the new West Brom home and away shirts way back on May 23rd.

Also embarrassing is the fact that Blackburn has still yet to officially unveil their home shirt for the new season, while their new away shirt has been unveiled but isn’t available until July 24th.

Based on the complications that both Blackburn and Everton has experienced with Umbro, I wouldn’t be surprised if both clubs will change to different kit manufacturers twelve months from now. Both the Blackburn away shirt and Everton home shirt have been delayed due to distribution problems by Umbro. Everton’s home shirt was scheduled for release on July 10 but has now been delayed to July 24.

All 20 clubs in the Premier League have changed their away shirts for the 2008/2009 season, but only two of the clubs didn’t change their home kit — Newcastle United and Manchester United.

Scoring system:
+5 if new home shirt officially unveiled, +5 if new away shirt officially unveiled, +2.5 if home shirt didn’t change, +5 points if new home shirt is available for purchase on or before July 21, +5 points if new away shirt is available for purchase on or before July 21 and +5 points if the club decided to grant the sponsorship of shirt to a charity. Third shirts weren’t calculated in formulas because not all clubs produce third kits.