Gareth Bale to Real Madrid - world record fee

Great goal last night, love when he steps outside the line and still holds off the defender. He's got great balance it's not just speed.

shrewdness

So far in all competitions he's averaged slightly better than a goal every other game. He has a good few assists too, not sure of how many overall but he has joint 2nd most in la liga with 12.

He's moved to another league and country, with a new language and culture and all that brings with it. To a much higher quality team where he is just one of many top class players as opposed to being the undisputed main man at spurs. Not to mention of course the pressure he's been under from the start given his transfer fee. All things considered I think he's had a fine debut season so far, and there's still time for a few more decisive contributions in the next month. He was never going to go straight in and exert the same influence as he did at spurs last season. I'm looking forward to seeing him and Ronaldo link up next season as they learn each other's games better.

Hillarious photo from last night. Look at the guy to the right of Bale standing up giving the finger

death1234567

Knex. wrote: »

Still don't think he's worth 20m more than Ronaldo.

He's not and never was. If Ronaldo was sold last summer his fee would have been way over £100m, the only reason Bale is the current world record transfer is because of the massive inflation in transfer fees in recent years.

v3ttel

Knex. wrote: »

Still don't think he's worth 20m more than Ronaldo

Ronaldo was signed for £80m. Bale was signed for £85.3m. The difference is not £20m.

Sources: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/23538218 and http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/8094720.stm

Regardless, it's pointless to blindly compare transfer fees when the sum they paid for Ronaldo literally changed the market. (ie: is Ronaldo worth 67 Eric Cantona's?) If Ronaldo was sold today, it would be for a lot more than 5 years ago.

GLaDOS

No point getting too hung up on transfer fees with the likes of Madrid, City, PSG etc. imo. Better to analyse his performances independent of that.

He's a had a great first season all things considered and will likely kick on next season when he's fully settled/fit.

Ulysses Gaze

speedboatchase wrote: »

Nonsense. He doesn't have to tick any boxes for Real. He's arguably the greatest player in their history. He certainly will be undisputably in a few seasons.

Bold statement considering Di Stefano won 5 Champions Leagues in a row and was the Real Top Scorer until Raul popped along.

dreamers75

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Bold statement considering Di Stefano won 5 Champions Leagues in a row and was the Real Top Scorer until Raul popped along.

And he cost????

Stupid post.

Bale has lived up to playing for Real. Not many GB players do that.

kingtiger

he had already played 85min and to make a run like that after a full match and then to finish with that coolness

Hats off to Bale

Y2KBOS86

Reminded me of Kaka in his prime.

Incredible athlete.

Jesus Wept

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

From the day he signed until 2010, 1.2 million "Ronaldo 9" jerseys were sold in Madrid alone.

Even if they were €50 quid a jersey which they aren't, I've been to Madrid and a Ronaldo 9 jersey was €70 last time I went, that's still €60,000,000 in sales, Real would take a good percentage of that, and that's just in Madrid.


I think it's safe to say that Madrid have definitely earned back the fee they paid from jersey sales , I wouldn't be surprised if they doubled it.

I don't think shirt sales work like that at all.

Y2KBOS86

Our Year wrote: »

I don't think shirt sales work like that at all.

Think I read before that clubs make between 4-6% on shirt sales.

Shirt sells for 60 euro, they make 4-6% of that, 3 euro a shirt, that's probably generous too :eek:

To get back that 86 million, they would need to sell 28 million shirt's of Bale.

Rayne Wooney

Our Year wrote: »

I don't think shirt sales work like that at all.

And yet here we are, with no evidence to the contrary?

I'm happy to have what I thought disproved

Y2KBOS86

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

And yet here we are, with no evidence to the contrary?

I'm happy to have what I thought disproved

http://www.soccerbible.com/news/football-shirts/archive/2012/10/09/the-world-s-best-selling-club-football-shirts.aspx

EuropeanSon

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

And yet here we are, with no evidence to the contrary?

I'm happy to have what I thought disproved

Real don't get much of that, most of it goes to the manufacturer, wages for staff, etc, etc. I doubt very much they make more than 10%.

And http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/10/08/manchester-united-and-real-madrid-top-global-shirt-sale-charts/ suggests they sell 1.4 million a year, in total. Much less than half of that is likely to be down to Ronaldo. Be generous and say he sells 500,000.

http://ie.askmen.com/sports/business_200/218b_sports_business.html
This says that NFL teams get 12% of the wholesale price of shirts. I imagine soccer would be similar. I don't know what the wholesale price is, but let's be extremely generous and just go with €50.

500,000*0.12*50= €3 million. Not exactly going to pay off his fee, is it?

I'd actually guess the real number is more like €1-2 million. It's negligible.

EuropeanSon

It's worth remembering also, that not all "Ronaldo 9" shirts sold are gains that they make from having Ronaldo. A good number of those would be shirts that would've been sold anyway, with someone else's name on the back, whether he was there or not.

Also, he's paid more than €20 million per year. So they probably wouldn't even make 10% of his wages back from shirt sales, never mind his fee.

ebbsy

The Spanish banks paid for Bale.

Good player though, and he will only get better playing with good players.

LiamoSail

I think Man United make the most from shirt sales. Its worth just over £1m annually iirc, certainly nothing massive. The deals with the manufacturer and sponsor are the ones that make the proper money

Muff_Daddy

EuropeanSon wrote: »

It's worth remembering also, that not all "Ronaldo 9" shirts sold are gains that they make from having Ronaldo. A good number of those would be shirts that would've been sold anyway, with someone else's name on the back, whether he was there or not.

On this, I'd venture to guess there would be a significant number of people who would have switched alligences between Man Utd and Real Madrid over the Ronaldo sale, particularly in Asia. Although whether that impacts on Real Madrid finances in any way is still open to debate.

Richard Hillman

ebbsy wrote: »

The Spanish banks paid for Bale.

Good player though, and he will only get better playing with good players.

Not the 122 million worth of players they sold during the summer. Bizarre statement.

rob316

He will never hit the heights of Ronaldo or Messi, so isn't worth the fee they paid. He wont be remembered as one of the greats of the game.

Rayne Wooney

EuropeanSon wrote: »

Real don't get much of that, most of it goes to the manufacturer, wages for staff, etc, etc. I doubt very much they make more than 10%.

And http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/10/08/manchester-united-and-real-madrid-top-global-shirt-sale-charts/ suggests they sell 1.4 million a year, in total. Much less than half of that is likely to be down to Ronaldo. Be generous and say he sells 500,000.

http://ie.askmen.com/sports/business_200/218b_sports_business.html
This says that NFL teams get 12% of the wholesale price of shirts. I imagine soccer would be similar. I don't know what the wholesale price is, but let's be extremely generous and just go with €50.

500,000*0.12*50= €3 million. Not exactly going to pay off his fee, is it?

I'd actually guess the real number is more like €1-2 million. It's negligible.

Okay so let's do this the other way then

There was 1.2 million Ronaldo 9 jerseys sold in the capital between 09-10.
http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2013/9/6/4702220/no-fernando-torres-doesnt-earn-chelsea-21m-in-annual-shirt-sales. Clubs get around €12 per jersey sold as said in that link.

12 x 1200000 = €14,400,000

14 million from the capital alone in his debut season and logic tells me they could have sold a lot more than that all over the world because of their fanbase

http://www.ronaldo7.net/news/2014/04/818-real-madrid-sold-1-million-cristiano-ronaldo-jerseys-last-year.html

Ronaldo sells 1 million jerseys in 2013.

12 x 1000000 = €12,000,000

So up to €26,400,000

It was no idle boast, either, as the club announced just a year later that they had made £90 million, mainly on the back of shirt sales of the Portuguese forward's No. 9 jersey and other memorabilia in the preceding year. That included 1.2 million shirt sales in Madrid alone.

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/8961?cc=5739

That announcement was made before the one million sales were announced.

So to say Ronaldo's shirt sales primarily and then memorabilia covered almost 1.5 times his transfer fee isn't far fetched, depending on which sources you believe

Jesus Wept

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

I'm happy to have what I thought disproved

Good.

rob316

rob316 wrote: »

He will never hit the heights of Ronaldo or Messi, so isn't worth the fee they paid. He wont be remembered as one of the greats of the game.

That's a fairly big statement to make. I Don't agree at all. He's only 24.

Ronaldo is 29 and still getting better. Messi is 26 and the same.

Another couple of seasons minimum before he can be judged. The ability and potential is there for everyone to see.

Rayne Wooney

Our Year wrote: »

Good.

So nothing to back your statement up then, thought as much

EuropeanSon

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

Okay so let's do this the other way then

There was 1.2 million Ronaldo 9 jerseys sold in the capital between 09-10.
http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2013/9/6/4702220/no-fernando-torres-doesnt-earn-chelsea-21m-in-annual-shirt-sales. Clubs get around €12 per jersey sold as said in that link.

12 x 1200000 = €14,400,000

14 million from the capital alone in his debut season and logic tells me they could have sold a lot more than that all over the world because of their fanbase

http://www.ronaldo7.net/news/2014/04/818-real-madrid-sold-1-million-cristiano-ronaldo-jerseys-last-year.html

Ronaldo sells 1 million jerseys in 2013.

12 x 1000000 = €12,000,000

So up to €28,400,000





That announcement was made before the one million sales were announced.

So to say Ronaldo's shirt sales primarily and then memorabilia covered almost 1.5 times his transfer fee isn't far fetched, depending on which sources you believe

His fee was £80 million, or €95 million or so. So even with your claims (which contain one basic addition error BTW) you've gotten less than a third of the way to covering his fee. You're being absurd.

As I said before, just because they sell a Ronaldo shirt doesn't mean it's because of Ronaldo. Real Madrid will always sell a certain amount of shirts, just because the butter chooses to put Ronaldo's name on it rather than Alonso or Benzema or whoever else doesn't mean that sale is the result of Ronaldo.

This myth about shirt sales has been debunked several times in this thread already, I've given you more than enough reason to realise you are wrong here, I'm not going to waste any more words on this argument.

EuropeanSon

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

So nothing to back your statement up then, thought as much

He's pointing out that I already did it for him.

Rayne Wooney

EuropeanSon wrote: »

His fee was £80 million, or €95 million or so. So even with your claims (which contain one basic addition error BTW) you've gotten less than a third of the way to covering his fee. You're being absurd.

As I said before, just because they sell a Ronaldo shirt doesn't mean it's because of Ronaldo. Real Madrid will always sell a certain amount of shirts, just because the butter chooses to put Ronaldo's name on it rather than Alonso or Benzema or whoever else doesn't mean that sale is the result of Ronaldo.

This myth about shirt sales has been debunked several times in this thread already, I've given you more than enough reason to realise you are wrong here, I'm not going to waste any more words on this argument.

the club announced just a year later that they had made £90 million, mainly on the back of shirt sales of the Portuguese forward's No. 9 jersey and other memorabilia in the preceding year

I've given you more than enough and a statement from the club that counters your absurd claim that Ronaldo only made the club a 1-2 million negligent amount through jersey sales year for Madrid. I'm not wasting any more words here.

Looper007

rob316 wrote: »

He will never hit the heights of Ronaldo or Messi, so isn't worth the fee they paid. He wont be remembered as one of the greats of the game.

Jesus give the lad a chance, he's only 24. He's had a very good first season in La Liga, he's also won the Premiership footballer of the year twice which shows he's the real deal. unlike Messi and Ronaldo, he was only turned into a attacking player 5 years ago after been a defender.

I tell you who won't be the real deal and that's Neymar, cause he scored a few fancy goals in a otherwise poor Brazilian league and everyone was overrating him, his lack of work rate and only scoring 15 goals in a ton of games plus his presence in the team is denting Messi's form. Just cause he's Brazilian and he scored a few fancy goals , he's overrated by many footballing fan's around the world.

HazDanz

Looper007 wrote: »

Jesus give the lad a chance, he's only 24. He's had a very good first season in La Liga, he's also won the Premiership footballer of the year twice which shows he's the real deal. unlike Messi and Ronaldo, he was only turned into a attacking player 5 years ago after been a defender.

I tell you who won't be the real deal and that's Neymar, cause he scored a few fancy goals in a otherwise poor Brazilian league and everyone was overrating him, his lack of work rate and only scoring 15 goals in a ton of games plus his presence in the team is denting Messi's form. Just cause he's Brazilian and he scored a few fancy goals , he's overrated by many footballing fan's around the world.

Looper you can't say that and then dismiss Neymar. He's only 22. A lot of stuff off the pitch for Neymar to deal with too.

He's had an okay season. 15 goals in 40 isn't brilliant but isn't terrible either. It'll be interesting to see how he plays next season after the world cup.

Looper007

HazDanz wrote: »

Looper you can't say that and then dismiss Neymar. He's only 22. A lot of stuff off the pitch for Neymar to deal with too.

He's had an okay season. 15 goals in 40 isn't brilliant but isn't terrible either. It'll be interesting to see how he plays next season after the world cup.

I'm sorry but that Brazilian league is poor and anytime he was seen playing for his national team agaisn't top class team's, he was shown up. He hasn't impressed as of yet, maybe I'm a tad harsh on the lad but when i hear Neymar been put up there with Messi and Ronaldo it's laughable, it was been done before he even went to Barca just cause he scored a few fancy goals agaisn't poor teams. I think he's a decent player overrated cause he's Brazilian.

Bale has proven it in one of the toughest leagues in a average side how good he was. We'll be talking about Bale for years to come, Neymar he be in "Where is he now" files like many over hyped Brazilian's before him.

Moneymaker

Too early to write off Neymar. A lot of problems off the field for Barcelona, can't be helping matters.

He has generally played well for Brazil from what i've seen.

Jelle1880

https://twitter.com/English_AS/status/456748887798063104

He's been 'fined' for his goal against Barca :pac:

Jesus Wept

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

So nothing to back your statement up then, thought as much

EuropeanSon wrote: »

He's pointing out that I already did it for him.

Gwan my son.

Rayne Wooney

Our Year wrote: »

Gwan my son.

His points are terrible terribly flawed

Leaving out the fact he uses a comparison from a completely different sport to come up with a percentage, he speculates that Ronaldo only sold 500,000 jerseys per year when it is absolute fact that he sold 1.5 million jerseys in the Spanish capital alone between 2009-10

And not to mention the quotes from the club themselves backing up the fundamental point I'm making

astonaidan

astonaidan wrote: »

I think ye are being a bit harsh on a player who has been injured, wait till the seasons over before writing him off, I think he will suit Reals counter attacking down to the ground in the long run

I think I may have been right about this

Corholio

Don't know why some people just love or actually want to see players fail. Bale seems like a decent guy, I remember watching the press conference when he was introduced at Real and he looked so nervous, delighted and almost astonished to be where he was, like a kid living the dream. Don't see too many reactions like that these days.

We all know the price paid was ridiculous, but that's never been a football thing. He's been excellent for Real and risen to most occasions this season and already has a brilliant trophy winning goal. He'll just get better and better too, when he's free of injuries and beds in even more into the team.

COYVB

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

he speculates that Ronaldo only sold 500,000 jerseys per year when it is absolute fact that he sold 1.5 million jerseys in the Spanish capital alone between 2009-10

Check your facts again there chief. The sheer ignorance surrounding shirt sales numbers from football fans is astonishing. Clubs make a pittance from them, and they sell a tiny fraction of the amount some think

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/10/08/exclusive-manchester-united-and-real-madrid-top-global-shirt-sale-charts-081001/

Rayne Wooney

COYVB wrote: »

Check your facts again there chief. The sheer ignorance surrounding shirt sales numbers from football fans is astonishing. Clubs make a pittance from them, and they sell a tiny fraction of the amount some think

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/10/08/exclusive-manchester-united-and-real-madrid-top-global-shirt-sale-charts-081001/

According to the latest figures, more than 1.2 million shirts with ‘Ronaldo 9′ on the back have been sold in the Spanish capital alone


http://metro.co.uk/2010/04/15/cristiano-ronaldo-shirt-sales-have-already-paid-off-80m-fee-to-manchester-united-real-madrid-claim-242129/

That is not the only link, I honestly cannot make it any clearer than it already is at this point

COYVB

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

That is not the only link, I honestly cannot make it any clearer than it already is at this point

You can make it as clear as you like, but you're wrong. Real sell 1.5 million jerseys TOTAL per year. There might be 1.2 million Ronaldo jerseys in existence, but they sure weren't sold in one year

Liam O

I didn't rate Bale as a great player and laughed at the fee Real paid for him, though I'd be sceptical of the fee and it's conditions. He's been outstanding this season though. Fair play to him, he's really stepped up, he's not a Messi or Ronaldo but then again, nobody is. He has elevated himself firmly into the group below them though in my eyes which is surprising to me.

IamtheWalrus

Liam O wrote: »

I didn't rate Bale as a great player and laughed at the fee Real paid for him, though I'd be sceptical of the fee and it's conditions. He's been outstanding this season though. Fair play to him, he's really stepped up, he's not a Messi or Ronaldo but then again, nobody is. He has elevated himself firmly into the group below them though in my eyes which is surprising to me.

Is it likely he'll become top 5?

Rayne Wooney

COYVB wrote: »

You can make it as clear as you like, but you're wrong. Real sell 1.5 million jerseys TOTAL per year. There might be 1.2 million Ronaldo jerseys in existence, but they sure weren't sold in one year

You see what you are doing here, placing more credibility in a link you provided on the basis of you wanting yourself to be right and nothing more. The club released those figures, many places reported it, whether you like it or not over a million jerseys were sold in Madrid with Ronaldo's name on it in his debut season.

ctrl-alt-delete

Merson just saying on SSN that out of the fee the players they bought, he had not heard of any of them

Merson wrote:

We know our football, we know a bit. The players they brought in I've never heard of any of them, I hadn't heard of any of them, not like 1 or 2, none of them, I'd never heard of any of them before, so ..

Safe to say he doesn't get out of the soccer saturday studio.

EuropeanSon

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

That is not the only link, I honestly cannot make it any clearer than it already is at this point

I'll give this one more shot. Don't know why I'm bothering really.


Real may have sold 1.2 million Ronaldo shirts. But those sales are not solely down to Ronaldo. They would sell a large proportion of those shirts anyway, with someone else's name on the back, if Ronaldo didn't exist.

They are the biggest football club on earth. They will be selling over a million shirts per year without him, as I'm sure sales figures before his arrival would back up. So if they now sell 1.5 million total, of which 1.2 million have his name on the back, that does not mean his signing caused them to sell 1.2 million more shirts, and so he cannot be given credit for the full return from the sales of those shirts.

The marginal gain is what matters. If you fail to understand this point, I'll just assume you are being willfully ignorant, as the logic is clear as day.

Rayne Wooney

EuropeanSon wrote: »

I'll give this one more shot. Don't know why I'm bothering really.


Real may have sold 1.2 million Ronaldo shirts. But those sales are not solely down to Ronaldo. They would sell a large proportion of those shirts anyway, with someone else's name on the back, if Ronaldo didn't exist.

They are the biggest football club on earth. They will be selling over a million shirts per year without him, as I'm sure sales figures before his arrival would back up. So if they now sell 1.5 million total, of which 1.2 million have his name on the back, that does not mean his signing caused them to sell 1.2 million more shirts, and so he cannot be given credit for the full return from the sales of those shirts.

The marginal gain is what matters. If you fail to understand this point, I'll just assume you are being willfully ignorant, as the logic is clear as day.

You are moving onto an entirely different point than we started out on because you realise now that you are wrong on that.

As for the point you're addressing now, you can't possibly know for certain what you've written is concrete without a large enough sample size over a good few years that shows Ronaldo doesn't have an effect on jersey sales. You are speculating just like you have done in other posts and it really baffles me how you are making such statements when you probably don't even know what Madrid's jersey sales were in the 4/5 years before Ronaldo joined.

All you can do now to give any credibility to your argument is rustle up figures for the last 5 years and the 5 years before Ronaldo joined to show there is not a significant change instead of waffling on talking about sales figures that you are oblivious to, but I'm betting you won't.

Son Of A Vidic

Liam O wrote: »

I didn't rate Bale as a great player and laughed at the fee Real paid for him, though I'd be sceptical of the fee and it's conditions. He's been outstanding this season though. Fair play to him, he's really stepped up, he's not a Messi or Ronaldo but then again, nobody is. He has elevated himself firmly into the group below them though in my eyes which is surprising to me.

I share those sentiments and I have to give the lad credit for delivering, after moving to the pressure cooker of Madrid.

EuropeanSon

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

You are moving onto an entirely different point than we started out on because you realise now that you are wrong on that.

As for the point you're addressing now, you can't possibly know for certain what you've written is concrete without a large enough sample size over a good few years that shows Ronaldo doesn't have an effect on jersey sales. You are speculating just like you have done in other posts and it really baffles me how you are making such statements when you probably don't even know what Madrid's jersey sales were in the 4/5 years before Ronaldo joined.

All you can do now to give any credibility to your argument is rustle up figures for the last 5 years and the 5 years before Ronaldo joined to show there is not a significant change instead of waffling on talking about sales figures that you are oblivious to, but I'm betting you won't.

The points I started with are all still valid, but you have decided to ignore them. Note also that I made this point before and you ignored it.

You clearly are really reluctant to change your mind. I've no idea why. You seem really invested in the idea the Ronaldo paid back his fee with shirt sales, I don't know why this matters to you so much when it is so clearly false.

Rayne Wooney

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

All you can do now to give any credibility to your argument is rustle up figures for the last 5 years and the 5 years before Ronaldo joined to show there is not a significant change instead of waffling on talking about sales figures that you are oblivious to, but I'm betting you won't.

And bingo, rule number 1 of waffling always deflect when asked to back up your nonsense it seems

Paully D

To be honest I don't watch/read/listen to much on La Liga outside of the Real Madrid and Barcelona games so I could be missing it, but to me Bale's performances seem to be flying under the radar a bit.

I believe he has 54 goals and 36 assists for Real Madrid now in a little over 100 games.

What a superb player.