Club Merchandise Models: Which Fits Your Club's Size?
Club merchandising runs on a handful of models: an own shop, a full-service retail partner, licensing out by category, a specialist for collectibles and print on demand. Which mix fits depends mostly on the size of the club.
A club's merchandising rests on three questions: who runs the shop, who makes the products and who holds which licence. The answers depend mostly on the size of the club, its reach and its commercial team.
This guide sets out the five common models, what each one covers and which suits professional, regional and amateur clubs. Most clubs combine two or three of them, and the partners involved usually complement each other.
Key Takeaways
- Sports was the fastest-growing licensing category in 2025, up 8.5% to $44.4 billion, according to Licensing International’s 2026 Global Licensing Industry Study. Club merchandising budgets are growing with it.
- Five models cover most club programmes: an own shop, a full-service retail and e-commerce partner such as Fanatics, licensing out by category, a specialist agency for collectibles, and print on demand.
- No single model covers every category of licensed merchandise, so most clubs combine two or three. A retail partner can run the shop while a collectibles specialist supplies licensed metal items for it.
- Club size decides the mix: professional clubs run an own shop or work with a full-service partner and license categories out, regional clubs pair a simple storefront with a collectibles specialist, and amateur clubs start with print on demand.
- Commercial revenue hit a record €5.3 billion across Deloitte’s top 20 clubs in 2024/25, the largest single stream for a third consecutive year, which is why retail capability is now a board-level topic rather than a shop-floor one.
- Score suppliers on licence status, minimum order quantity, sampling process, and where quality control physically happens. Those four answers separate a production partner from a catalogue reseller.
In This Article
- Key Takeaways
- What Is Club-Level Merchandising?
- What Are the Five Club Merchandising Models?
- What Does a Full-Service Retail and E-commerce Partner Do?
- Who Makes Licensed Collectibles and Other Club Products?
- Own Shop, Licensing Out and Print on Demand
- Which Merchandising Model Fits Which Club Size?
- Quick Screen: Eight Questions Before You Choose a Partner
- What Are the Biggest Challenges in Club Merchandising Right Now?
- Real Example: Co-Branded Collectibles for Qualifying Clubs
- Where Technology Genuinely Helps (and Where It Doesn’t)
What Is Club-Level Merchandising?
Club-level merchandising is the design, licensing, production, and sale of officially branded products for a single sports club rather than a whole league or federation. It covers everything from replica kit and scarves to pins, trophy replicas, medals, and limited-run commemorative collectibles sold through club shops, stadium retail, and direct-to-fan channels.
The distinction matters because league-level programmes and club-level programmes have almost nothing in common operationally. A league programme is built around forecast volume, standardised assortment, and national distribution.
A club programme is built around a specific fanbase, a specific season, and a specific set of moments: a promotion, a centenary, a stadium rebuild, a cup final. Those moments produce small, time-sensitive runs, and they shape which merchandising model suits a club.
What Are the Five Club Merchandising Models?
Clubs sell merchandise through five models: an own shop, a full-service retail and e-commerce partner, licensing out by category, a specialist agency for collectibles, and print on demand. Each covers different products, and most clubs combine two or three.
- Own shop. The club runs the online store and the stadium shop itself, usually with a logistics partner for warehousing and shipping. It keeps the margin and the fan data and needs buying skills and working capital.
- Full-service retail and e-commerce partner. A partner such as Fanatics runs the online store, fulfilment and often matchday retail for the club, usually with a broad apparel range.
- Licensing out by category. The club grants licences to manufacturers for categories it does not want to run itself and earns royalties on their sales.
- Specialist agency for collectibles. Pins, medals, keyrings and trophy replicas are designed, approved by the rights holder and produced in short runs, then sold through whichever shop the club uses.
- Print on demand. Shirts, hoodies and caps are printed per order, so there is no stock to finance.
The models complement each other. A club with a retail partner still needs someone to make its commemorative pins, and a club with an own shop may license its home textiles to a third party. The sections below look at each model and at which mix suits which club size.
What Does a Full-Service Retail and E-commerce Partner Do?
A full-service partner runs the commercial side of merchandising for a club: online store, payments, warehousing, shipping, returns and often stadium and event retail. The club contributes its brand and its approvals, and the commercial terms are set in the contract.
Fanatics is one such partner. At the NRF conference in January 2026, chief executive Michael Rubin described licensed merchandise as roughly a $7 billion business for the company, as reported by Retail News (company figures, unaudited). Fanatics was also named official on-site retail licensee of FIFA for the 2026 World Cup, covering stadium and Fan Festival retail across the 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Other operators, such as Legends and Levy Merchandising, focus on stadium and event retail: design, staffing, stock and point of sale. A full-service partner suits clubs with high online demand and a broad apparel range. Collectibles in short runs can still come from a specialist and be sold through the same shop.
Who Makes Licensed Collectibles and Other Club Products?
Licensed collectibles and other club products usually come from a specialist agency, a promotional catalogue supplier, a factory the club sources from directly, or the kit supplier. The routes differ on minimums, product categories and who owns the quality.
1. Specialist agency for licensed collectibles (Am Ball)
Am Ball: Munich merchandising agency for clubs, federations and brands: custom and licensed metal collectibles since 1998. Official licensee of UEFA, the Bundesliga, the DFB, FC Barcelona, Chelsea FC, Olympique de Marseille, the Spanish and French football federations, The Open and the Ballon d'Or, among others. Quality is checked where the piece is made: raw material first, then the sample, then the run.
That difference shows up in the specification. Ask any producer for its published tolerances: they exist only where someone physically inspects raw material and checks a pre-production sample at the factory, not where a trading company forwards a spec sheet.
Orders typically start at around 300 units, the size that makes short-run club projects viable in the first place. On average a sample takes 2 to 3 weeks and series production about 4 weeks after sample approval, with shipping on top; our guide to custom merchandise lead times shows the right time to order for each transport route.
Strengths
- Direct licensee status with UEFA, the Bundesliga, DFB, and multiple major clubs, so rights approval runs through an existing relationship
- Metal-goods depth: trophy and cup replicas, enamel pins, medals, keyrings, produced for CAF, the Champions League, the DFB, the Bundesliga Meisterschale, and the Handball Bundesliga
- Low minimums (around 300 units) suited to season-specific and commemorative runs
- Factory audits via BSCI and Amfori
- European production for apparel (mostly Portugal) alongside Asia sourcing for metal goods
Limitations
- Premium price position, not a low-cost bulk option
- Not an in-house manufacturer; production runs at long-standing partner factories that the agency selects and inspects
- Does not operate club e-commerce, fulfilment, or in-stadium retail
Best for: clubs, federations, and event organisers producing licensed collectibles and commemorative lines where approval, tolerances, and short runs matter more than raw volume.
2. Promotional merchandise suppliers and catalogue resellers
These firms sell from an existing catalogue with your crest applied. Fast, and widely used for giveaways.
Strengths
- Low prices and short lead times on standard items
- Simple ordering with no development work required
Limitations
- No product development; you pick from what exists
- Sourcing is usually opaque, which stalls licensor approval
- Quality control is documentary rather than physical
Best for: unlicensed internal giveaways and sponsor gifts, not saleable club collections.
3. Direct factory sourcing
Going straight to an Asian manufacturer or trading company cuts out the intermediary margin.
Strengths
- Lowest unit cost at volume
- Full control of specification if you have the in-house expertise
Limitations
- The club carries rights approval, compliance, QC, and shipping risk
- Sampling cycles and time zones stretch calendars
- Rework on a failed run lands entirely on you
Best for: clubs with a genuine in-house sourcing function and time to absorb mistakes.
4. Kit supplier catalogue production
Nike, adidas, Puma, Castore, and others produce club product under the technical kit deal.
Strengths
- Global distribution attached to the kit agreement
- No development or production burden on the club
Limitations
- Restricted to the supplier’s assortment and calendar
- Little to no room for club-specific collectibles or commemorative projects
Best for: replica kit and core training wear. Not a solution for anything else.
Own Shop, Licensing Out and Print on Demand
An own shop keeps margin and fan data with the club, licensing out turns categories into royalty income, and print on demand covers small apparel runs without stock. Each fits a different club and a different part of the range.
Own shop. The realistic set-up is a Shopify-class storefront with a third-party logistics partner behind it, plus the stadium shop. The club gains margin and control and takes on buying, stock and customer service. FC Barcelona, for example, announced in April 2026 an official club-operated resale channel for authentic jerseys, opening another revenue stream around goods it already controls.
Licensing out by category. Agencies such as IMG Licensing build and manage programmes rather than making anything. IMG Licensing was appointed exclusive global licensing agency for the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup (Naples, 2027), covering consumer products, publishing, collectibles and memorabilia. The model suits a club that wants its name on many categories on royalty economics.
Print on demand. Each shirt, hoodie or cap is printed after it is ordered and shipped by the print partner. The club holds no stock and needs no minimum order. The range is limited to printable textiles and accessories.
How the models combine. A common set-up pairs a retail partner, which runs the shop and fulfilment, with the kit supplier for replica wear and a collectibles specialist for licensed metal items sold in the same shop. Each partner covers its own categories, so the range grows without overlap. Clubs that run their own storefront split production the same way.
Which Merchandising Model Fits Which Club Size?
Professional clubs run an own shop or work with a full-service retail partner, and license categories out. Regional clubs do well with a specialist agency for collectibles plus a simple storefront. Amateur clubs get furthest with print on demand and an occasional collectible run.
Professional clubs. With national reach and a commercial team, the usual set-up is an own online shop or one run by a full-service retail partner, the kit supplier for replica wear, and licences granted to third parties for the categories the club does not want to run itself. Collectibles and commemorative pieces then go to a specialist producer that holds or obtains the relevant licence.
Regional clubs. In the lower professional and semi-professional leagues, volumes are too small for a volume apparel operator but large enough for a collectible range. A specialist merchandising agency for pins, medals and keyrings typically works from around 300 units per design, while a hosted storefront and the matchday kiosk cover the sales side.
Amateur and grassroots clubs. For club shirts, hoodies or caps in small numbers, print on demand is the practical route: items are printed per order, so there is no stock to finance. A metal collectible makes sense when one occasion justifies a run of a few hundred pieces, such as a centenary, a promotion or a cup final.
Quick Screen: Eight Questions Before You Choose a Partner
Once you know which model you are buying into, score every candidate against these eight questions before you spend real time on them. Most can be answered in a single call, and the answers separate producers from resellers fast. For the deeper buying framework once you are down to a real shortlist, our guide to choosing a football club merchandising agency covers logistics, compliance, and sustainability expertise in more depth.
- Licence status, stated precisely. Ask whether they are an official or authorised licensee of the relevant rights holder, and for which categories. “We work with clubs” is not a licence.
- Where quality control physically happens. On-site at the factory, or a photo sent by a trading company? Ask for the checkpoint list: raw material inspection, pre-production sample approval, final inspection.
- Minimum order quantity. If your commemorative run is 400 units and the MOQ is 5,000, the conversation is over. Get the number early.
- Sampling process and cost. How many rounds, how long each takes, and whether tooling costs are refunded against production.
- Published tolerances. For metal goods, ask for die-strike tolerance, plating thickness in microns, and base metal gauge. A supplier who can’t answer is buying from someone who can.
- Lead time, including approval loops. Production time is the easy part. Licensor approval is what kills calendars. Ask how they handle it.
- Compliance responsibility. Packaging, labelling, and product safety obligations sit with whoever places the goods on the market, which may be you. Establish in writing who carries them.
- Factory audit status. BSCI or Amfori audits are the baseline evidence that someone has actually visited the production site.
Our guide to choosing a merchandise manufacturing partner goes deeper on the contractual side of this, including sample sign-off and what to put in writing before tooling starts.
What Are the Biggest Challenges in Club Merchandising Right Now?
Three problems come up repeatedly, and each has a practical fix.
Counterfeit pressure. Unlicensed goods around big fixtures and tournaments erode both revenue and brand control. The fix is product that’s genuinely hard to fake: die-struck metal with tight tolerances, serialised editions, and materials a street vendor can’t replicate.
Calendar compression. A cup run creates a merchandising window of days, not months. Clubs that pre-agree artwork templates and approval routes with their producer before the window opens are the ones that ship in time.
Assortment sameness. Fans across Europe own the same scarf in different colours. European consumers often wear club-branded apparel as everyday casual wear, extending demand beyond matchdays, per Grand View Research, which means differentiation now competes with general fashion, not just other clubs.
The response that works is product with a story attached to something only your club has. That leads directly to the next section.
Real Example: Co-Branded Collectibles for Qualifying Clubs
For clubs that qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference League, Am Ball produces bespoke co-branding collectibles: the club’s own crest and the competition’s emblem united on a single trophy replica, pedestals engraved with title years, or limited-edition series built specifically for that club’s shop.
The approach serves two purposes at once. It gives clubs outside the usual handful of Champions League regulars a product tier built around their own European run, and it gives sponsors and partners the same co-branding option on their own collectibles.
That’s the template worth copying. It doesn’t compete on price or on assortment breadth. It sells something built around one club’s specific season, at a margin a generic printed item can’t reach. If you’re weighing this kind of project, the article on who makes official trophy replicas covers the tooling and approval steps that sit behind commemorative metal work.
Where Technology Genuinely Helps (and Where It Doesn’t)
On-demand printing and demand forecasting have real value for apparel: less dead stock, faster reaction to a result or a signing. Integrated CRMs now connect ticketing, retail, and streaming into unified fan profiles, which makes it far easier to predict who will buy a limited edition before you commit to a run.
What technology doesn’t solve is tooling. A die has to be cut, a sample has to be struck, and someone has to look at it under a lamp. Anyone selling you an automated shortcut around physical sampling for metal goods is selling you a reject rate.
Use the data to decide what and how many. Use a production partner to decide how.
Frequently Asked Questions
What merchandising models can a club choose from?
Five are common. A club can run its own shop with a logistics partner, work with a full-service retail and e-commerce partner such as Fanatics, license categories out, often through an agency such as IMG Licensing, use a specialist agency for collectibles, or use print on demand for small apparel runs. Most clubs combine two or three.
Can a club work with a retail partner and a collectibles specialist at the same time?
Yes, and many club programmes are set up that way. The retail partner, for example Fanatics, runs the shop, fulfilment and the apparel range, while a specialist supplies licensed collectibles such as pins, medals and trophy replicas that are sold in the same shop. The two cover different categories and complement each other.
What minimum order quantity should a club expect for licensed collectibles?
Expect minimums starting around 300 units for metal collectibles from a specialist producer, versus several thousand from volume-oriented suppliers. The MOQ is driven by tooling cost: a die has to be cut regardless of whether you order 300 pins or 30,000.
How long does licensed merchandise production take?
For metal collectibles, a sample takes on average two to three weeks once artwork is approved, and mass production about four weeks depending on product, complexity and volume, with shipping on top. Licensor approval sits on top of that and is the variable most clubs underestimate, so start the rights conversation before you finalise the design.
Do we need a separate licence for each product category?
Usually yes. Licence agreements are granted by category and territory, so a right to produce apparel does not automatically extend to pins, medals, or trophy replicas. Confirm the category coverage in writing before production starts.
Which merchandising model suits a smaller club?
For apparel in small numbers, print on demand; for pins, medals or keyrings, a specialist agency once an occasion justifies a run, typically from around 300 units. An own shop and licensing out pay off once a club has national reach and a commercial team.
Is running retail in-house better than outsourcing it?
In-house retains more margin and all of the fan data, but it requires buying capability, warehousing, and working capital. Outsourcing to a retail operator removes that burden at the cost of margin. Some clubs with a dedicated commercial team run the storefront themselves, as Bristol Rovers did when it took its retail division in-house in June 2025. Production can then be contracted separately.
How do we protect a club collection against counterfeits?
Build products that are expensive to fake. Die-struck metal with tight tolerances, numbered limited editions, embedded authenticated materials, and official packaging with traceable compliance marks all raise the cost of copying well above what counterfeiters will absorb.
Conclusion: Match the Model to the Club
No single model covers all of club merchandising. Most clubs combine a shop model with the kit supplier and one or two production routes, and the mix shifts as the club grows.
Start with size and reach: a professional club with a commercial team, a regional club with a matchday kiosk, or an amateur club with a few hundred members. Then check every partner on licence status, minimum order quantity, sampling, and where quality control physically takes place.
Sports licensing grew 8.5% to $44.4 billion in 2025 and now accounts for 11.4% of the global licensing market, its highest share ever recorded in the Licensing International study. The categories are broad enough that retail partners, licensees and collectibles specialists usually work side by side.
Reach out to discuss licensing and production if you have a club collection in the pipeline and want to talk through tooling, approvals, and timing.
Last updated: September 2026.
