Newcastle United will partner with Adidas this summer, and Castore co-founder Tom Beahon has shared his thoughts on losing the Magpies to the global giants.
Castore has confessed that they ‘had to learn from experience’ after Newcastle United canceled their deal with the kit manufacturer.
Newcastle’s contract with Castore is set to end next month, after the club decided to sign up with Adidas in the summer. It brings to an end Newcastle’s three-year partnership with Castore, which dates back to the Ashley period.
Newcastle’s chief commercial officer, Peter Silverstone, highlighted the ‘one-sided’ nature of this arrangement in his witness statement at a Competition Appeal Tribunal hearing last week, after Sports Direct failed to temporarily prevent the Magpies from selling their new shirts exclusively through JD Sports.
Castore was not only granted exclusive production, sponsorship, retail, and distribution rights for all club-licensed products, including team gear, apparel, and accessories, but also non-sports products such as bed linen, Christmas jumpers, and mouse mats. According to Newcastle’s barrister, Thomas de la Mare, there was also a ‘exclusivity seemingly unpaid for which Sports Direct enjoyed’; there was no right for the club to receive any sales royalty or sales data; and there was no requirement for Castore to pay interest on late payments. There was also a’significant penalty break price’.
Mr de la Mare stated that ‘all of it led to practically Castore’s founders accepting in a meeting that the arrangement was very one-sided’. Tom Beahon, Castore’s co-founder, has now spoken out about Newcastle’s future plans.
“When you try to be disruptive, bumps in the road are unavoidable,” he said on the Price of Football podcast. “The only way to get through them is to clench your teeth and bite down on the gum shield.
“You must first have a level of humility, and it is an interesting mix for an entrepreneur to be really ambitious, have great, deep self-belief, and also have the self-awareness to recognize where you need to develop. Castore has gone from zero to multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in a relatively short period of time. You don’t do it perfectly.
“No one does, so you must recognize where improvements can be made, and we’ve done our best to do so…it’s also true that all teams change brands in this market.” It has been well publicized that the German national team has left Adidas after 77 years. There is now a lot of buzz about Barcelona and Nike.
“If these things happen to Nike and Adidas, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen to Castore from time to time. It’s a competitive marketplace. We love to compete. We play to win. We normally win more than we lose, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be flawless, and you have to learn from your mistakes.”
