FEATURE | SOCCER
Soldier of fortune Warrior burst into European soccer this summer through an eye-catching deal with one of the continent’s grand old clubs. While Liverpool is the priority for now, Warrior Football’s Richard Wright insists the company has bold plans to establish itself in its new playground. By Tom Love
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n January 2012 Warrior Sports officially announced it would enter into European soccer at the start of the 2012/13 season, replacing Adidas as the kit supplier to 18-time English champions Liverpool Football Club. In doing so Warrior would compete alongside the likes of Adidas, Nike and Puma in the European soccer apparel marketplace, an industry as competitive as Europe’s leading leagues, teams and players. That the US sports apparel and equipment brand would make its debut in the Premier League, perhaps the most prestigious stage in domestic club soccer, was surprise enough; more surprising still was that it would do so by paying what is believed to be a record amount for English soccer for a six-year deal with one of the biggest global brands in the sport. Describing the landmark agreement from its inception as an off-the-cuff boardroom pitch to its conclusion on the hallowed turf of Anfield is Richard Wright, head of Warrior Football, the dedicated soccer division of the Warrior brand. Wright explains that following Boston-based New Balance’s acquisition of Warrior in 2004, the footwear brand’s board pointed Warrior away from its traditional roots as a lacrosse and ice hockey equipment manufacturer and on to the path of team sports that are played on a global platform. “Lacrosse is essentially 90 per cent US, and ice hockey, although it’s a bit further afield than lacrosse, it still isn’t a truly global sport,” Wright points out. “So the choices were basketball or football and thankfully they [the boards of New Balance and Warrior] chose football.” Led by Englishman Wright – a 20-year veteran of the sports apparel industry who began his career in a factory in
“‘We come not to play, we come to win,’ simple as that. That’s the company, that’s its personality, its attitude.” Heckmondwike, Yorkshire constructing the very first Nike Tiempo soccer boots – Warrior crossed the Atlantic and landed on England’s western shores in January 2011, establishing a design and development beachhead in the leafy Manchester suburb of Wilmslow. “I came on board and pooled a team of people here from product marketing and sports marketing with no assets at all,” Wright says. “At that point in time there was no Liverpool [deal], so the brand was going to go into football regardless,” he adds in answer to the brand’s very own chicken or egg question. Rather than forming Warrior Football on the basis of securing a long-term agreement with Liverpool, Wright explains that initially the brand was exploring the possibility of partnering with any of the Premier League teams that currently make up the league’s ‘top six’. “We were looking for big clubs,” he states. “The Liverpool deal came up because New Balance had an endorsement deal with the Boston Red Sox and therefore the Fenway Sports Group [FSG],” says Wright, referring to Warrior’s and Liverpool’s respective owners. “At one of the Fenway and New Balance meetings one of the New Balance guys suggested putting in an offer for Liverpool. That’s essentially how it started,” he adds, stressing that although the deal was initially made in Boston, Liverpool and the club’s managing director Ian Ayre “were part of that conversation from the word go.”
“It almost came out of the blue to be honest but out of the really big five or six teams, you have to be opportunistic in your outlook,” Wright says. The breakthrough for Warrior in signing with a club “in the top six in terms of commercial return” and behind only Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea and Bayern Munich in average annual shirt sales, was seen as a major loss for Adidas. With Warrior wrestling the much-prized Liverpool account out of the hands of Adidas – albeit by reportedly more than doubling the price of the previous agreement – the German company lost the ability to clad approximately 810,000 fans per year in its distinctive three-striped apparel. As to what message Wright believes the Liverpool partnership sends to the likes of Nike, Puma and Adidas, he asserts: “It tells them that maybe their service levels aren’t quite as good as they think they are.” Ignoring the lucrative nature of the partnership to both manufacturer and club, however, the deal, which if reports are to be believed carries an overall value of some US$229.8 million, represents a massive leap of faith for both parties. In approving what is thought to be a US$38.3 million per season agreement to provide the playing kit for the Liverpool squad in addition to the club’s legion of fans and international followers, Warrior has not only committed itself to what would be a huge loss leader if sales targets are not consistently met but also risked forever tarnishing its reputation
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