Brazil star Neymar has ended his 15-year long sponsorship deal with American giants Nike which was worth over $105 million suppose to run from 2011 to 2022. Nike released the official statement confirming “Neymar is no long an Nike athlete from 31st August 2020”. Apparently Neymar’s camp and Nike had run into differences during contract renewal. That leaves Puma and Adidas open for negotiations to make Neymar their poster boy.
Puma are already in talks with Neymar camp and as the things stand Puma are highly likely to reach and agreement with Neymar before the start of 2020-21 season. The financial details are needed to be agreed but we can expect Puma to fork out a $30 million a year contract in a 5 year deal.
How Much Neymar Earns Through Sponsorship Deals ?
Neymar also have other lucrative deals like EA Sports, Red Bull, Beats, DAZN, Mastercard, Gillete, Qatar Airways and countless local Brazilian and International deals which in total earn him around $25 million a year alone. Neymar is the fourth highest paid footballer in the world in terms on the pitch contract but if we include his massive sponsorship deal he becomes one of the top earners not only in football but of all Sports in general.
Neymar’s empire of sponsorship deals is at the same level like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi and he still have 4-5 good years ahead of him and that is the sole reason Puma want to tie him up for a long contract.
Neymar’s club PSG have a long term deal with NIKE and that might be causing bit of delay in ironing out the PUMA deal. It might be similar to what Cristiano Ronaldo had at Real Madrid when he was Nike athlete but Adidas were Real Madrid’s kit suppliers. So we might be looking at the similar scenario in Neymar Puma deal.