The Lionel Messi effect should certainly not be overlooked to explain the sale of a record 15,000 subscriptions this year to attend CF Montreal home matches. Nonetheless, interest in the team resonates even in the business community.
In recent weeks, the club has announced partnerships with Bombardier and Air Transat for the upcoming season.
If the value of these two contracts remains confidential, the president of the club, Gabriel Gervais, speaks in an interview with The Press of “major league” agreements. We can deduce that the amounts are calculated in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Gabriel Gervais has been trying to bring CF Montreal closer to the business community since his arrival at the helm of the organization two years ago. CF Montreal’s partnership revenues were among the lowest in the league when he was appointed president.
“It’s a process that takes time. It can’t be done in a few weeks,” he said in an interview, speaking of the agreements announced last month with Bombardier and Air Transat.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Gabriel Gervais has been president of CF Montreal for two years.
“Each partner comes together for different reasons. It can be for visibility, branding, activation inside the stadium or outside the stadium. With BMO, for example, we are doing a regional tour across Quebec to share soccer culture. »
In the case of Air Transat, the company will present the star of the match after the games at Saputo stadium starting with the opening match in Montreal on April 13.
A mix of local, national and global brands
Before reaching an agreement with Bombardier and Transat, CF Montréal already had partners such as the Bank of Montreal (BMO), whose logo can be found on the front of the match jersey, and Telus, whose name appears on the right sleeve of the jersey.
Saputo, Adonis, Labatt, Harry Rosen, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Adidas, Apple and others are also considered partners of CF Montreal.
Gabriel Gervais evokes an alignment of values to explain the partnerships and affirms that the commitment to giving back to the community by supporting soccer from the grassroots to the professional level appeals to companies.
PHOTO MICHAEL LAUGHLIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Lionel Messi rushes with the ball in an Inter Miami match against Nashville last Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The arrival in MLS of international superstar Lionel Messi with Inter Miami – this team will play in Montreal on May 11 – and the fact that CF Montreal has several Quebec players on the field are elements which also contribute to boosting the interest of supporters and partners.
Gabriel Gervais points out that last year, during certain matches, the team had six Quebec players on the field, several of whom came from the CF Montreal Academy, a soccer player training center with more than 100 players and players.
Playing to a sold-out audience
The club president’s goal is to have a full house for each of the 17 season matches played this year at Saputo stadium, which has a capacity of approximately 20,000 spectators.
There are still a few tickets on sale for the opening match on April 13, but “not many,” says Gabriel Gervais. Last year, the team played seven sold-out games and six the year before.
With 15,000 subscriptions sold – this is the maximum that can be sold in order to give supporters the opportunity to purchase tickets individually – the objective appears achievable and would certainly give a boost to the club’s finances.
The team still risks ending another year in the red. However, management maintains that it is in the right direction to eventually achieve profitability in the coming years. To achieve this, the team must enter into other partnerships and continue to sell tickets, its two main sources of revenue. The sale of players is another source of income that the club wishes to develop further.
The value of CF Montreal has appreciated by 13%, to US440 million, for a little over a year, the digital publication Sportico also indicated at the start of the year.
This figure was calculated using a multiple of revenue. The study highlighted that CF Montréal’s revenues increased to US46 million in 2023, after reaching US30 million in 2022.
Gabriel Gervais believes that Sportico’s figures reflect reality rather well.
The Saputo family franchise, however, remains the team with the lowest value in Major League Soccer (MLS) while some teams in the league this year obtain valuations exceeding 1 billion US dollars.
The pandemic had strongly affected CF Montreal’s revenues in 2021 and 2020, and the team’s revenues had fallen to US19 million and US11 million, according to Sportico.