🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 How David Beckham Licenses his way to $90m per year

No British footballer has ever monetised their image quite like David Beckham.

Yes he is the President of Inter Miami, but behind all that is a licensing empire that has generated an incredible amount of value.

In 2023 alone the licensing arm of Beckham’s empire, DB Ventures, posted $91.2 million in revenue on his company accounts. That’s not from football, that’s from turning his name, story and image into various products across the globe.

The man fascinates me. My most recent YouTube video spoke about his entire business empire and today newsletter readers get even more detail on how Beckham leverages licensing today to generate millions in cash.

Beckham’s commercial operations sit within a parent company called DJRB Holdings. It includes:

• DB Ventures Ltd: The core licensing and sponsorship business

• Seven Global LLP: The business which houses joint ventures and all Beckham-branded products

• Studio 99: The production company behind his branded content and Netflix documentary

It’s a smart setup. But the real game-changer came in 2022.

That year, Beckham sold a 55% stake in DB Ventures to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) for around £200 million. ABG is one of the world’s biggest IP and brand managers. They manage the likeness rights for Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Shaquille O’Neal and more. They also own Reebok and license it globally.

Under ABG’s stewardship, Beckham’s licensing output has scaled dramatically. These are not regular endorsement deals. Beckham typically provides name, likeness, “creative input” and promotional reach. The partners handle manufacturing, distribution and logistics. Some of these started before the ABG tie-up but a glimpse into the licensing empire will give you an idea as to the size of the empire currently:

• Coty Fragrances: $50 million in annual retail sales, $10 million in royalties to Beckham

• DB Eyewear (with Safilo): Licensed frames promoted via Beckham’s own channels

The Beckham fragrance range is a perfect example. Coty are a billion-dollar cosmetics company who tapped DB for a line of scents. They sell via fragrance stores and also DTC via the WEBSITE. I have never smelt them and the branding is very Tom-Ford-esque, but they still generate $1m a week in sales and in turn, make Beckham 20% of that.

You can copy-and-paste the above paragraph with eyewear too. This time, the website is here and the parent company is Safilo. The eyewear is a hit.

Some other examples include:

• Haig Club (exited in 2023): Whiskey with Diageo. This reportedly generated $20m/year in sales. $5 million/year in royalties

• IM8 Wellness (with Prenetics): Supplements brand backed by Beckham, launched with Aryna Sabalenka

He doesn’t try to build factories or hire product teams. Instead, he lets partners do the hard parts, while he monetises what he’s best at which is his story, his style and cultural pull.

IM8 is the latest and potentially the biggest. The Beckham Stack is another product bundle that has been created leveraging his name. The wellness industry has ballooned in popularity in recent years as supplements become the latest industry ripe for acquisition and exit potential.

Beckham has aligned himself perfectly.

While other athletes start with merch or energy drinks, Beckham signed a deal with one of the biggest licensing operators in the world, offloaded the execution, and turned Brand Beckham into a $91 million-a-year machine.

For an idea of all the deals he has in flight at the moment you can follow his @Studio99 Instagram page where most of the adverts are posted.

He has deals coming out of his ass 😅

I will leave you with an amazing tweet. @_SportsBall_ is an incredible account to follow on social media, they post several drawn animations explaining topics in sport.

See below for a TdF explainer as a perfect example:

Also, shoutout Carlos Braithwaite tweeting me this week:

Stay tuned!

Ha.

See you next week.