Ronaldo Signing Drives Al Nassr FC Merchandise Site Visits Up 300% 

Cristiano Ronaldo joined the little-known Saudi club starting January 1, 2023

One of the world’s best-known football (soccer for U.S. fans) stars, Cristiano Ronaldo has always made major news when he has changed clubs. Similarweb took a look at his impact on little-known Al Nassr through the lens of merchandise sales, and we can see that in the short time he has been with the club, visits to the Al Nassr store soared by 300%, to 264k visits in January 2023.

Key takeaways

• Visits to alnassrstore.com, the club’s merchandise store, rose 300% in January 2023, from the prior month, hitting 264k in January, up from 66k in December and just over 10k in November.
• Visitors to the merch store skew male (58%) and younger with the largest age categories 25-34 (34%) 35-44 (21%) and 18-24 (20%).
• Keyword searches related to Al Nassr and Ronaldo surged after his signing, with 145k total searches related to those two keywords.

Ronaldo puts Al Nassr FC on the global stage

On December 30, the football world was surprised with the news that Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the world’s best-known players, had joined Saudi club Al Nassr FC (effective January 2023) with a 30-month contract for what was likely to be a huge amount of money. Al Nassr competes in the Saudi pro league, their top league, but a level of competition likely to be well below the Premier League.

Prior to Ronaldo’s signing, there was very little interest in Al Nassr FC or its merchandise. However, that immediately changed in the wake of the signing. The spike in search traffic to the club’s merchandise store highlights the immediate impact Ronaldo’s signing has had on interest in the club and merchandising revenue, even before he sets a single foot on the pitch.

Demographics for the club store skew towards males, and young adults

A look at Similarweb demographic data shows that searches to the club’s merchandise site skew male and younger, with 58% of visitors representing males, and the largest age cohorts being ages 25-34 (34%) 35-44 (21%) and 18-24 (20%).

Keyword searches show huge interest in Ronaldo’s move

Similarweb keyword search data shows a spike in searches related to Al Nassr and Ronaldo, which totaled 145k searches over the past two months. The chart below shows the rise in keyword searches, with the greatest beneficiaries of that search being the sites goal.com, bolasport.com and dailymail.co.uk.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

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by Jim Corridore

Senior Analyst

Jim provides insights across multiple sectors. With 30 years on Wall Street and numerous awards for stock-picking, he is a SUNY Albany graduate.