Photos Credits : Wild and the Moon
Recently, the NBA has announced its arrival in Paris this summer. It will open a large three-story store on Boulevard Saint-Michel, previously occupied by a bookstore (no comment). This will be their third flagship in Europe, after London and Milan. The store will sell shirts, clothing, custom accessories and basketball collectibles. Classic.
Paris-Saint-Germain is thinking differently. At the beginning of January, it moved across the Champs-Élysées Avenue to open a store in a space twice as big as the previous one. An unnoticed movement from number 27 to number 92, which confirmed its desire to change division. This new space is intended to be more than a retail outlet: a place for meeting and sharing. On the first floor, of course, the inevitable textile and accessories department. But upstairs, a new takeaway, the result of a partnership between the club’s medical department and the bobo-healthy-chic food brand Wild & The Moon. Few PSG fans will understand the conceptual meaning of that name… Not so bad because, to compensate, a range of six healthy juices was imagined for them and require no effort of decoding: The Dribble (anti-inflammatory), The Tackle (antioxidant), The Speed (energizing), The Pitch (detox), The Support (protein-rich) and The Interval, this one being “brain-boosting”, a promise that is undoubtedly more elusive… The brainstorming must have lasted several days…
In any case, this is the proof of Paris-Saint-Germain’s ambition to become a lifestyle club, which does not seem obvious, considering the behavior of some of its supporters. And even to enter the ring of health and wellness brands, which is just as unexpected. Like anything that brings together a community and has an identity, a sports club must now be seen as an attractive brand, capable of welcoming products and services from all horizons and for which retail can be a real growth driver. As a consequence, the business model of sports clubs is evolving to respond to the greed of their fans (not all of them are soccer players…) and their desire to own totemic places to meet. Fan-based marketing is still in its infancy and could very well inspire brands…