The Cost of the Aston Villa Home Shirt
Aston Villa cut it fine in launching their home shirt for the 2022/23 shirt with just over 24 hours to go before their first pre-season friendly of the new season against Walsall.
The new Castore home shirt is conservative in style and clean in design, and has been relatively well received by supporters, but its price has been a major talking point.
Last season, Villa’s replica shirts were priced at £57, while this season they’ve increased by 14% to £65.
Before the price announcement, a Villa staff senior member had informed MOMS that the shirt would be a “reasonable price”.
Whether matching the £65 Newcastle United charge for their Castore shirt is ‘reasonable’, considering the year-on-year percentage increase, is debatable.
Castore Comparison
A bone of contention has also been the prize comparison with fellow Castore brand mate’s Wolves’s pricing structure, which MOMS has already highlighted in the case of the training wear.
Castore Shirt Price Comparison
| Team | Standard Price | Long Sleeve Price | Pro Price |
| Aston Villa | £65 | N/A | £110 |
| Newcastle United | £65 | N/A | £110 |
| Rangers | £65 | £70 | £105 |
| Wolves | £55 | £65 | £105 |
The reason for the difference in Wolves replica shirt pricing is apparently due to Wolves manufacturing the shirt themselves (with a third party) under licence to Castore. All club pro shirts are manufactured by Castore.
The scenario presented is shirts manufactured directly by Castore will be of better quality to the ones outsourced by Wolves.
Will they really be though?
There tends to be not much of a difference in terms of the spectrum of quality in replica shirts in terms of materials (and design is subjective, after all). But we await a direct comparison.
In terms of the standard replica shirts, Wolves at £55, are £10 cheaper.
Why did Wolves decide to outsource their shirts? Was it to pass a saving onto their fans? Why did Castore allow this, if they want to be regarded as a quality brand (surely there will be quality control on their licensed products)?
Villa’s shirts were £57 last season, so the issue isn’t necessarily being more expensive than Wolves per se, as that was expected. The main gripe is the 14% year-on-year price increase, which is a bit rich considering the double digit increase in ticket prices too.
Did MOMS miss out on the news of everyone receiving double digit pay increases despite the global economic downturn?
Of course, economically, the club are simply taking advantage of a captive market and the peer group pressure that exists amongst the fan base (which is intensified by social media).
There’s the argument, if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it, which is of course the law of market forces.
Fair enough.
Human Advertising Boards
Take a step back and the whole concept of sponsored replica shirts is quite remarkable in how it works.
Football club’s get paid millions by the shirt sponsors for the honour and exposure of being on the front of a club’s shirt.
Then, and this is the amazing bit, the club can actually get its supporters to actually pay for the privilege of working for them as walking human advertising boards to promote the sponsor.
The supporter gets zero acknowledgement or consideration for their work as lackeys providing the sponsor with additional exposure.
And the supporter allows this to happen year after year, paying more and more for the ‘privilege’.
In a logical world, you’d pay less for a sponsored shirt, by way of compensation for the value a shirt wearer directly gives to the sponsor.
Football though, has become far from logical.
Big up the Cazoo!
UTV
You can order your Aston Villa home shirt with free UK delivery here
