The Mirror recently unveiled that David Beckham will wear the number 75 shirt at Milan. If this is true then it's no great surprise (though I actually called 45 to continue the Michael Jordan theme) as Beckham's favoured numbers 7 and 23 are taken by Pato and Ambrosini respectively and DB7/23/75 was born in 1975. In fact, and here's a surprise, it's a marketing masterstroke.
Players have been using more imaginative or high numbers for several years now. Two great examples were Ivan Zamorano's inventive use of a plus sign to, in his own mind, continue wearing number 9 upon Ronaldo's arrival at Inter and Bixente Lizarazu's apparently erotic numbering on rejoining Bayern Munich. The latter turned out to be an early example of the year of birth method and that's the current fashion at Milan (Google "Milan Fashion" and this'll no doubt prove me right).
Shevchenko, Ronaldinho and Flamini have all recently been brought in and all wear their year of birth on their backs. As a result, lots of fans also wear their (Shevchenko, Ronaldinho and Flamini's) year of birth so Beckham fits perfectly into this. Throw in the ever-secretive Sporting ID's club-specific fonts and numbering style and you have a late entry on a million Christmas lists. Threefold.
The difference between the potential for shirt sales "on the back" of this deal compared with that of other deals is that this is temporary. When a player moves the temptation may be to wait to see how the move works out. No one wants a DIOUF 9 Liverpool shirt (I lie. I had one on sale on jfh29er and it went. Eventually) or a Balaban 19 Villa one but, while Beckham's not really expected to set the San Siro alight, crucially, he'd also have to go some to really blot his copybook in two months. Beckham, his team, Milan and his bootmaker/sponsor adidas (it's not just convenient that it's Milan and not Inter or Juve) have engineered this move because people can buy into a piece of history. You can complete your set with a Beckham 75 Milan shirt and, guess what, it never goes out of date because there'll only ever be one style that Beckham wore.
On the other hand we can argue that short loan deals aren't generally money-spinners when it comes to shirt sales. Admittedly the only other very short term deal I can think of that would have brought people into the club shop would have been Henrik Larsson's stint at Manchester United a couple of seasons ago. In this case it would mainly have been due to the amount of fans who follow both United and Celtic, where Larsson's career peaked, but Beckham is most certainly a cut above in this respect.
The man, the player, the face, the body, the icon, (the wife) can completely transform marketing capabilities. If it can work for the already successful Real Madrid - where signing Beckham boosted their shirt sales by circa 200% and BECKHAM 23 shirts accounted for 50% of total shirts sold - and, more recently in the case of the LA Galaxy, can invigorate a sport across a whole country then it cannot fail to have at least a substantial effect over a limited time in Italy. Beckham's potential as a clothes horse in a fashion capital should not be underestimated. People might buy a Beckham shirt because they want to take free-kicks like him but, especially more recently, it's because they want to be him. Have his face, his body, (his wife).
The guy just looks good. He can, for want of a classier phrase, polish any turd; The classic rossoneri stripes will look great on him without doubt. This season's Milan kits are nice enough but we know it doesn't even matter. When I saw Beckham wearing the current England away shirt and almost got out the writing set to apologise to Umbro for previous comments. Then I saw Phil Jagielka in it and put the writing set away.
If you'd like another unsubstantiated opinion, I believe that Beckham had a hand in Mourinho's departure from Chelsea. When the LA Galaxy deal was first confirmed Beckham was languishing on the Real Madrid bench and I fully expected him to end his final season in Europe out on loan in the Premier League. The marketing value of a Beckham move to - the newly adidas-wearing - Chelsea surely would have been right up Peter Kenyon's street for exactly why he is on his way to Milan. Mourinho, in my Damned United-esque fantasies, thought differently and the writing was on the wall.
So what have we learnt? Well:
1) David Beckham has a massive impact on the shirt sales of a club and this, despite the reported (by The Star. Ahem) spanner being thrown in by The Mafia, will follow at Milan.
2) Beckham is surrounded by particularly shrewd advisors whose marketing perceptiveness is equalled by that of Milan and, particularly, adidas.
And
3) I spend a little bit too much time admiring Becks's body.
Overall the feeling is that football continues to be business before sport and supporters continue to be manipulated by the brand value. It can make some amongst us feel so dirty that they need a shower. Myself, I just need to add "adidas Milan home shirt Small (Beckham 75 printing)" to my Christmas list.
