Gareth Bale will hit heady heights with move to Real Madrid from Tottenham Hotspur

A potential world-breaking transfer to arguably
the planet’s biggest club might seem a glorious
fulfilment of Gareth Bale’s professional ambitions,
but joining Real Madrid could just be the start of
his journey into sport’s commercial stratosphere.
Bale is already one of British football’s most
marketable talents. He earns a reported £2  
million from his deal with adidas, and he recently
agreed a new sponsorship deal with BT and an
appearance on the front cover of the new Fifa
2014 video game – alongside Lionel Messi.
But becoming the most expensive footballer in
history would take him to a whole new level in
terms of his global profile, and not just because
of his proposed £180,000-a-week wage deal at
the Bernabéu.

Even those staggering sums are likely to be
dwarfed by the money that could be generated by
his image rights so a key part of Bale’s contract
negotiations with Real – assuming Tottenham
eventually decide to sell – will centre on what
percentage the club keeps of any additional
sponsorship and advertising income yielded by
using his image.
Nigel Currie, director of sports marketing
consultants brand Rapport, said: “Bale will look to
secure as much of that as he possibly can, or his
agent will. Players are looking to protect
themselves more and secure more rights around
what they can control. He could have the kudos
of being the most expensive player ever.
“He’s prime material: he comes across well in the
media, he’s a good-looking lad, seems to do and
say all the right things. So highly, highly
marketable for any number of companies.”
Bale, too, now appears to realise his own value.
The 24-year-old has already applied to trademark
his ‘“Eleven of Hearts” goal celebration, with the
player keen to use the device on “clothing,
footwear and headgear”, according to papers filed
at the Intellectual Property Office.
More commercial deals would surely follow if
Spurs’ stand-off with Real eventually ends with
the player moving to Spain, as Bale tries to
emulate Cristiano Ronaldo, his potential new
team-mate at Real, who has profited from
developing his “CR7” brand.
There is also money to be made by Real from
signing such a marketable asset. “In the past,
Real had the Galactico policy of signing one
marquee player a season, which helped to
generate shirt sales,” Dr Rory Miller, who teaches
Football Finance at Liverpool University, said.
“This is that policy in action again under the
same president. Bale, as we’ve seen over the last
two or three seasons, is a very bankable
figurehead in terms of his image. Assuming Real
have at least a share of his image rights then
they’re obviously going to be able to profit from
that.”
It has been suggested Real will seek external
investment to help fund the deal but Miller
believes it in unlikely they will hand Spurs such a
large fee up front.
“Real will want to stage payments as much as
they can,” he said.
Miller said Spurs are likely to insist on a bank
guarantee for the fee, which they could then sell
to another bank in order to get all the money at
once. It is then a matter of how they spend it,
with the club set to build a new £400   million
stadium. “They could use this money to pay down
some of the debt they’ve already incurred on
stadium planning and design. Or they could say:
‘We’ve got this money in hand and that gives us
much more leverage in forthcoming transfer
windows.’
“The problems Spurs are going to have if they get
€100 million for Gareth Bale is every selling club
knows they’ve got loads of dosh.”

Source: The Telegraph