While Liverpool is one of the largest football clubs in the world, it’s marketing revenue is not in the same range as the top clubs. Liverpool has worked to get into the second tier of money generation in terms of marketing money. But thanks to some foresight and work to build the marketing engine of the club, Liverpool is no longer in the second class when it comes to one particular social media platform, TikTok.
While Liverpool has been working hard to catch up to rivals in Twitter and Instagram, the early adoption and the push to gain traction for the TikTok account is a major win for the club. Liverpool now finds itself in the top 5 on TikTok, with about 50% more followers than Manchester United.
Liverpool on TikTok
The TikTok platform lends itself to short videos that lend themselves to a number of different uses, but work very well for Liverpool to showcase top plays and top players. While the Liverpool YouTube channel shows longer videos of training sessions, humerous videos, player pieces and other items of interest, TikTok is a perfect fit for a younger crowd who looks for smaller, more easily consumable video bites.
Whether it’s a slick move in practice, Jurgen celebrating a goal or even a great play from the past, TikTok lets users get a quick feel of the team and the players, while being able to go from clip to clip. This is a fun way for new fans to get to know the current team and even see some plays from the past, and is a great way for current fans to see fun times in training and playful moments behind the scenes.
Long Term Marketing Revenue
Liverpool has been living to this point primarily on game day revenue and on broadcast revenue. This works when the team plays well and fills the stadium. Unfortunately with Covid the stadium sits empty and when Liverpool loses early in Champions League it severely damages the revenue from which the team can spend on new players.
Accordingly it has been a goal of the current administration with the team to build the marketing side of the business and increase the marketing revenue which to this point is well below those of the top teams in Europe. Liverpool is well behind Barcelona and Real Madrid in marketing revenue as are almost all teams, however they are closing the gap. The other team to note is Manchester United, who are also well ahead of Liverpool in marketing revenue and so being able to move so far ahead in followers on TikTok is a significant win for the team to be able to try to establish themselves as the top team in England.
The new Nike deal was structured in a way to not only bring more money into the teams coffers but also to increase exposure and help in building the Liverpool name. Additionally the hiring of Billy Hogan shows that the team is focusing on the marketing side in hopes of generating the type of revenue necessary to support a long term dominant team.
Currently the team has the highest salary in England, and that is limiting the ability to bring in transfers. While Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota seem to demonstrate how much available money Liverpool has, those signings were actually done in a sneaky way to pay very little up front in hopes of being able to generate more money in the future.
And part of the hope for additional money in the future comes not just from winning but also from increasing marketing revenue. Which is why being the top team in England on TikTok is a significant win for Reds and will help achieve that longer term goal.
Daniel is a professionally designated accountant who has spent 20 years in the finance and data analytics field which has skewed his view of the sporting world. Instead of seeing simply an athletic competition, he sees a financial exercise waiting to be unlocked by data analysis. He enjoys reading professional publications such as the annual deloitte football report and team financials as well as spending hours putting together and analyzing football data, which saves his readers from having to do it themselves.
