FC St. Pauli has announced that there will be a new supplier, PUMA, starting next season. How did this come about and what does this mean for the DIY brand?
(Titelbild: (c) IMAGO / Lobeca / RobertoSeidel via OneFootball)
It’s been almost exactly three years to the day since FC St. Pauli announced that it had launched its own equipment brand, DIYY (“At St. Pauli, we equip ourselves”). For the 2021/22 season, the team competed in jerseys they produced themselves. Almost all of the equipment bore the label DIY („Do it – improve yourself“). This is now over (for now).
Starting next season, FC St. Pauli will once again have an external supplier, PUMA. But the DIYY brand is not off the market. Rather, PUMA has acquired the license for this for the term of the equipment contract.
An external supplier brings resilient stability
As usual, there are no public details about the contract. But a term in the range of four to six years can be assumed. The contract with PUMA for FC St. Pauli initially has the classic advantages of a supplier deal:
Guaranteed fixed sumEquipment from the license team, NLZ and bullies
In particular, this fixed sum is likely to be a non-negligible advantage in economically difficult times. According to the club, the entrepreneurial step of producing the equipment itself was primarily assessed as a risk by the DFL when it came to licensing. No guaranteed winning amounts could be planned into the budget. In this respect, the sum now contractually agreed (the NDR states a sum of two million euros per season) also represents reliable stability in the question of licensing.
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This collaboration with PUMA has already existed in the past: from 1988 to 1990 and from 1997 to 2000, the black cat adorned the FCSP jersey. In addition, in 2020, shortly after the introduction of DIYY, PUMA was also introduced as a supplier for the footwear. The communication channels may therefore have been correspondingly short.
The return to the classic constellation of a professional club being equipped by an external provider is a business decision. The former business manager, Bernd von Geldern, explained via DIIY that the decision was made to continue “year by year” will meet. According to our information, discussions with PUMA began in winter 2022. It was already clear this summer that the sporting goods manufacturer would act as a supplier from the 24/25 season.
The last DIIY jersey from FC St. Pauli for the time being. // (c) Peter Böhmer
DIY – now in collaboration with PUMA
DIIY is not a separate company, but a registered trademark of FC St. Pauli Merchandising GmbH & Co. KG. This will remain in place in the future, but PUMA has now licensed this brand and can continue to promote it (in collaboration and consultation with FC St. Pauli).
Oke Göttlich answers an obvious question as to whether the path back to a classic supplier would not also be a defeat for DIIY as follows:
“What we created with DIIY gave us the opportunity to be of interest to larger sporting goods manufacturers again and to enter into conversation.”
Ok Divine
At the same time, if the DIIY brand were to continue to develop its own brand, it would probably have reached its limits in terms of resources, which are not the case for a global company like PUMA simply due to its size. This is particularly true with regard to further developments in research and innovation in textiles.
It was important for FC St. Pauli that all previous sustainability standards that were created with DIIY were adopted and continued by PUMA. In many cases, this also applies to the production facilities in Europe (Turkey) that DIIY has previously used and that PUMA has largely taken over.
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New jersey: Circular
Let’s come to what is probably the most important news for many: At €79.95, the new jersey for the 2024/25 season will be five euros more expensive than this season’s jersey. However, this would also have been the case with another DIIY jersey due to increased costs in all areas.
It will also be a “circular jersey,” meaning it will be made largely from recycled or regenerative material. At least for PUMA it will be the first football jersey of its kind.
In addition to the professionals and the NLZ, the bullies are also equipped. For the amateur departments (and therefore also the 1st women, for example) there is still departmental autonomy. Of course, they can also benefit from the deal and register their own needs there.
The future of DIY?
In the two years of DIIY, FC St. Pauli sold a total of almost 60,000 jerseys, which exceeded the sales values under Under Armor and was at first division level. The idea of producing a professional club’s sportswear itself and, above all, sustainably has left an impression on the industry. The DIYY brand will continue to exist under PUMA.
At the time of the presentation, there was the prospect of perhaps even being able to act as a supplier for other clubs, especially in the amateur sector. However, this never progressed beyond the status of inquiries.
Whether this specific case can be implemented under PUMA is also rather questionable. However, amateur departments of the FCSP could have team goods produced under this label or special promotions (promotional jerseys for special occasions) could also be produced for the professionals among them.
If PUMA’s licensing ends at some point, FC St. Pauli could continue to operate the brand itself – but this is still a long way off in the future and certainly not the goal at the moment.
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Synergy effects thanks to a global player
If you look at the development in professional football in recent years, the trend among the really big sporting goods manufacturers is to only work with the really big teams. All clubs outside the Champions League will then have a difficult time.
In this respect, being able to sign a long-term contract with one of the major suppliers as a second division team is a real highlight.
In the Bundesliga, PUMA currently only supplies Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach. Internationally they are AC Milan, Olympique Marseille, Manchester City, Valencia and Fenerbahçe, as well as some national teams (including Israel). As is customary in the industry, playing friendly matches against these clubs is also a possible part of the contract. The FCSP fan scene would certainly be more happy about a game in Marseille than a home game against Valencia.
Conclusion and evaluation
The fact that FC St. Pauli had its jerseys and other clothes produced ecologically and fairly in-house was an economic risk. But also a courageous decision and logical consequence of a development that was set in motion with the proposal at the 2016 general meeting (to produce the club’s clothes fairly and sustainably). This courage was rewarded. It was nothing less than a big exclamation point of what a football club is capable of – despite the additional difficulties that the pandemic brought with it. This step will certainly have strengthened the “FC St. Pauli” brand.
No longer equipping yourself with DIY and switching to PUMA could be perceived as a kind of step backwards. However, the economic stability through guaranteed income seems to be so important for the club in the current situation that it has to be taken with us. Without the step and courage taken by DIIY at the time, it would probably not have been possible to be in this negotiating position now and to conclude this deal as a second division team.
However, we can all only make the final assessment at the end of the season – because of course a deal like this stands and falls for the outside world primarily on whether the new jerseys look good or not. It’s quite possible that promotion will be secured on the 32nd matchday in the Volkspark and that the celebrations the following week against VfL Osnabrück will be tackled in a new way (*Choo-choo*).
// Mike
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2023-10-25 15:02:46
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