Mitoma Brighton shirt sales versus £90m from Al Nassr

Dry January is almost over. Thank God. Without beer or wine in my life, it is void of anything to do in the evenings. Hence why I found myself spending a Thursday night estimating how many Brighton shirt sales Kaoru Mitoma needs to be responsible for to equal the rumoured £90 million Saudi Super League club Al Nassr are willing to bid for his services.

Anyone who has attended an Albion game at the Amex since Mitoma burst onto the scene under Roberto De Zerbi in October 2022 knows the insane dedication Japanese football fans put in to watch Mitoma.

Many fly to England from the Land of the Rising Sun just to attend a Brighton match. Forget Big Ben. The London Eye. Buckingham Palace. Stonehenge. Edinburgh Castle. Mitoma is the number one tourist attraction driving visitors to the United Kingdom from Japan.

And it is bloody fantastic. In the West Upper when Brighton beat West Ham United 4-0 in March 2023, we had a Japanese couple in front of us.

Mitoma netting the third goal on 70 minutes of a game which was basically already over elicited one of the biggest celebrations of the 2022-23 season. Even bigger than beating Manchester United or when European qualification was confirmed.

Everyone around flocked to this couple to high five and hug them as they went totally insane at Mitoma notching. Football, what a sport.

That is not even the best example of Mitoma Mania seen at the Amex. A group of Japanese fans hired the old TV studio above the North Stand as a hospitality box when Brighton drew 1-1 with Sheffield United in November 2023.

For their troubles and expense of travelling over, they were treated to Mitoma being named on the bench. When he trotted down the touchline to warm up in front of the North Stand, they went absolutely mad. As if Japan had just in fact won the World Cup. Mitoma did at least come on at half time.

A box full of Japanese fans going absolutely mad at the mere sight of Kaoru Mitoma warming up is comfortably in my top five Amex moments ever #BHAFC pic.twitter.com/bhbfBkzdF7

— We Are Brighton (@wearebrighton) November 12, 2023

Mitoma’s legion of fanatics have unsurprisingly become a goldmine for the Albion. Those that make it to Brighton in person spend hundreds of pounds – possibly even thousands – at a time in the Seagulls Superstores at both the stadium and in Churchill Square.

It would be quite sensational timing if Mitoma was sold to Al Nassr just as the club shop receives its first significant size upgrade since the Amex opened in 2011.

Those who cannot come to England settle for spending equally crazy amounts of money on Albion merchandise online.

Nike are notoriously shit as a kit supplier for getting stock levels right. But it is no coincidence that most replica shirts since Mitoma signed for Brighton have spent more time out of stock than they have available for sale.

Which brings me nicely to the original question. How many Brighton shirts would the club need to shift from Mitoma Mania to get close to what Al Nassr are offering to sign the Japanese winger?

Football clubs receive a surprisingly small percentage from shirt sales. In 2023, German sports marketing expert Dr Peter Rohlmann broke down where the money ends up from a Premier League shirt.

Just seven percent on average goes straight back to the club. This is known as the licencing fee. Bigger clubs can demand more. When Liverpool signed their current deal with Nike for example, they managed to negotiate a licencing fee of 20 percent.

The retailer selling the shirt receives around 20 percent. This is part of the reason why you do not see Brighton shirts in Sports Direct or other shops. If every Albion shirt is sold through the club, Brighton get another 20 percent on top of their base seven percent licencing.

Then there is VAT and small overheads, like one percent towards distribution and two percent taken by the supplier for marketing. Whatever remains after all that goes to the supplier.

Taking those percentages and applying them to a £65 Brighton home or away shirt, the Albion make somewhere around £17.55.

To match the £54 million opening bid Al Nassr offered for Mitoma, Brighton would need to shift 3,076,923 shirts. Three million, seventy six thousand, nine hundred and twenty three shirts.

If the Saudi Public Investment Fund which owns Al Nassr finds a spare £90 million down the back of the sofa, it would equate to 5,128,205 shirts.

Mitoma Mania obviously goes far beyond just shirt sales. His legion of Japanese fanatics snap up merchandise from scarfs to training gear to casual stuff.

Brighton have subsequently realised one way to fleece supporters is by releasing new training kits every couple of months.

The Albion are on at least their third different gear of a season only just over halfway. All available for supporters to buy at a bargain price of £62 per midlayer. When did a jumper become a midlayer, incidentally?

Mitoma has also given Brighton brand recognition across Japan. This is something you probably cannot quantify through cold, hard, cash.

That the Seagulls can embark on a pre-season Japanese tour and pull in crowds of 30,000 all wearing Brighton shirts will never not feel weird.

Especially for those of us who remember when friendly games used to entail drinking 10 pints of Strongbow at Burgess Hill, wandering into the player’s tunnel in the second half and asking Matt Sparrow if he fancied a game of six-a-side at the Triangle later that evening.

Some Albion supporters believe the strength of Brand Mitoma will mean Brighton turn down even £90 million from Al Nassr. An amount which would make Mitoma the 11th most expensive footballer of all time.

If Mitoma goes, do his Japanese fans go with him and start supporting Al Nassr? Should that be the case, it will make a serious dent in how much the Albion make through merchandise sales going forward.

In any case, we will surely not see many paying thousands of pounds to fly to Brighton and watch fourth choice centre back Adam Webster coming on up front.

What we do know is the Albion would need to sell just over five million shirts to match a bid from Al Nassr of £90 million for Mitoma.

Absolutely useless information. But what else is there to do on a Thursday night during Dry January?