Bundesliga Merchandise: Six Clubs Take Three Quarters
Merchandise covers everything a club sells under its name, from the shirt to the pin. How that income is split between clubs is set out every year in the Bundesliga's economic report.
In This Article
- Six Bundesliga Clubs Average €35 Million in Merchandise
- The Middle and the Bottom Earn the Same
- The 2. Bundesliga Earns Almost as Much per Club
- Over Five Years, Merchandise Grew by Almost 10% a Year
- What the Split Means for a Club’s Range
- What the Report Does Not Show
- Sources and method
The 18 Bundesliga clubs earned €285.4 million from merchandise in 2024/25, just over 5% more than the season before. That was 5.57% of the league’s total revenue. The split matters more than the total. Six clubs earned about €212 million of it, or 74%. The other twelve averaged roughly €6 million each.
Six Bundesliga Clubs Average €35 Million in Merchandise
The league’s economic report sorts the Bundesliga into three groups of six by first-team wage bill. It does not name the clubs. In the highest-paying group, with wage bills above €99.5 million, the average club earned €35.3 million from merchandise in 2024/25. That is more than twice the league average of €15.9 million.
Sorting by league position gives a similar picture. Clubs finishing first to sixth averaged €32.8 million, seventh to twelfth €9.3 million, and 13th to 18th €5.4 million.
The Middle and the Bottom Earn the Same
Below the top six, the gap all but disappears. The middle wage group averaged €6.13 million from merchandise, and so did the lowest-paying group. In broadcasting, sponsorship and transfers, by contrast, the middle group is well ahead.
Measured against their own revenue, merchandise matters more to the lowest-paying clubs than to the middle group. It made up 5.6% of their income, against 3.3% for the middle group and 6.3% for the top six (our calculation).
One plausible reading: outside the top six, merchandise depends less on the wage bill than on the fan base and the region. The other explanation is accounting. A club that runs its own shop books the full retail revenue; a club that licenses its merchandise books only the royalties its partner pays. The report does not say which club sells which way. We describe the models in our piece on how football clubs run official merchandise.
The 2. Bundesliga Earns Almost as Much per Club
The 18 clubs in the 2. Bundesliga earned €96.4 million from merchandise in 2024/25, an average of €5.4 million each. That is close to the €6.1 million of the Bundesliga clubs outside the top six. Merchandise made up 7.98% of second-tier revenue, a bigger share than in the Bundesliga.
Two seasons earlier, in 2022/23, the figure was €51.5 million. Part of that rise is likely to come from the league’s changing line-up: every promotion and relegation changes how many clubs with large fan bases play in it. The report does not break this down.
Over Five Years, Merchandise Grew by Almost 10% a Year
A second source covers the longer trend. In February 2025 McKinsey published “Mehr als nur ein Spiel” (“More than just a game”), a study commissioned by the Bundesliga. It found that clubs’ merchandise income grew by almost 10% a year between 2018/19 and 2023/24, after 1.3% a year in the five years before.
The study gives three reasons: fans willing to pay more, a lift from Euro 2024 in Germany, and inflation. By the study’s own account, then, part of the growth is price, not volume. The league’s own figures confirm the direction and show it slowing: up 17% in the Euro 2024 season, 2023/24, and up 5% the season after.
What the Split Means for a Club’s Range
The top six sell nationally and abroad, including to people who never see a match in the stadium. For the other clubs, members and the region are the core. The same €6 million comes from a smaller circle.
Our take: clubs outside the top six usually do better with special products for that core than with a broad standard range, for example products that mark an anniversary or a title. Florian Riedmüller, a marketing professor, makes a similar case: limited editions, retro collections and personalised products often leave more room on price than the standard range. He has said figures will come with the new edition of his Fanartikel-Barometer, a study of German club merchandise.
Merchandise is an option, not an obligation. For some clubs a narrow range that sells reliably is a better choice than a broad one with a lot of stock.
What the Report Does Not Show
The report adds up what clubs book. Under a licensing model, the shop revenue appears at the partner, not the club. The groups are anonymous, so which six clubs form the top group can only be guessed. And because promotion and relegation change both leagues every year, comparisons across seasons show the direction rather than the exact gap.
Both sources come from the league side: the Bundesliga publishes the economic report and commissioned the study.
UEFA, the Bundesliga and FC Barcelona have trusted Am Ball with licensed collectibles for decades, and in 2025 alone we produced and delivered more than 300,000 pins. We are also the exclusive licensee for the official replicas of the Meisterschale and the DFB-Pokal. If you work with these figures and would like to compare notes, write to eg@amball.com.
Read next: Premier League: Big Six Earn 70% of Commercial Income.
Sources and method
- Bundesliga, Economic Report 2026, Bundesliga income statement (German): Bundesliga merchandise 2022/23 to 2024/25 with share of total revenue.
- Bundesliga, Economic Report 2026, Bundesliga key figures (PDF) (German): groups by first-team wage bill and by league position, average revenue per club for each revenue type, including broadcasting, sponsorship, transfers and merchandise (pages 34 to 36 of the report).
- Bundesliga, Economic Report 2026, 2. Bundesliga key figures (PDF) (German): 2. Bundesliga merchandise 2022/23 to 2024/25 with share of total revenue.
- McKinsey for the Bundesliga, Mehr als nur ein Spiel (PDF) (German, February 2025), page 15: merchandise growth of almost 10% a year from 2018/19 to 2023/24, 1.3% before, and the reasons given. Summary: Bundesliga Group press release (27 February 2025).
- Florian Riedmüller, LinkedIn post (German, November 2026): pricing room for limited, retro and personalised products; announcement of the Fanartikel-Barometer. The post gives no figures.
- Our calculations from reported figures: the top group’s share of league merchandise (6 x €35.3m, about €212m of €285.4m, 74%); merchandise as a share of each group’s revenue (35.3 of 556.3, 6.13 of 188.5 and 6.13 of 109.0, in € millions); average per 2. Bundesliga club (€96.4m divided by 18); Bundesliga growth in 2024/25 (5.2%) and 2023/24 (17.1%). The average of the twelve clubs outside the top group follows from the group values of €6,134k and €6,128k.
