FC Barcelona continues to expand its retail business with an opening at La Maquinista
FC Barcelona increases its commitment to the physical store. The Barça team is finalizing the opening of a new physical store in the La Maquinista shopping center in Barcelonaa point of sale that will be the entity’s eighth establishment.
The store is located on the lower floor of the three storeys that the shopping center has. The space has an area of more than 150 square meters, where, previously, one of the points of sale of the Nespresso coffee company was located.
To date, Barça had eight of its own stores in the province of Barcelona. In addition to the Sagrada Familia point of sale, the club has stores at Camp Nou, Rambla de Canaletas, Paseo de Gracia, Roca Village, Viladecans Style Outlet and two at Barcelona airport, one in each terminal.
Barça manages its commercialization through the Barça Licensing & Merchandising (BLM) company, which manages the club’s stores, online and wholesale sales and licensed products, with more than 2,000 items. In the last season, BLM contributed revenue of 56 million euros and aims to invoice up to 1,200 million in six years.
To date, FC Barcelona had eight of its own stores in Barcelona
Last June, the club passed in its general assembly the sale of 49.9% of BLM, for which it expected to earn between 200 million and 300 million euros. The club valued the company at 700 million euros and now seeks to obtain economic revenue from society in order to clean up the club’s accounts. At the moment, the club has not closed any agreement.
Barça’s current objective is to clean up the entity’s economy and meet the fair play to be able to register the signings made in the transfer market. The Catalan team closed the 2020-2021 financial year with operating losses of 481 million euros. Revenues stood at 631 million euros, which represents a decrease of 26% compared to the previous year, when they stood at 855 million euros.
In the last two months, the Barça team has made up to four “economic levers” in its objective of obtaining economic liquidity. First, the club sold 10% of its audiovisual rights for 207.5 million to Sixth Street. Later, the American fund bought another 15% of the club’s rights for 300 million euros and, finally, Barça sold 25% of Barça Studios to Socios for a further 100 million euros, before selling 24.5% from Barça Studios to Orpheus Media, a company managed by Jaume Roures.