Newcastle United set to follow Arsenal as major £30m deal agreed

Newcastle United will visit Adidas’ state-of-the-art headquarters in Germany this summer to mark their return as kit partners.

Adidas will officially take over the reins from Castore later this month in a multi-year deal worth a reported £30million per-season. As part of the agreement, the Magpies will move their retail operation in-house and fully refurbished the club store that situation at the Gallowgate End of St James’ Park.

While the store undergoes an extensive refurb, a temporary shop - made up of five modular ‘Rapid Retail’ units - will open on Wednesday, May 29 and begin selling the new 2024-25 home shirt from Friday, June 7. Sales are expected to soar with Adidas previously designing some of Newcastle’s most iconic kits between 1995 and 2010.

As well as the fan fare on Tyneside, Mail Sport reports that Eddie Howe and his players have also taken up the exciting opportunity to be based at Adidas’ HQ in pre-season. It’s claimed Howe & Co will travel to the £850m World of Sports facility in Herzogenaurach in July before eventually flying out to Japan - via the UK - for a commercially driven tour that includes two friendly matches.

But the Germany trip is also set to feature several commercial activations. Speaking to the local media last week, Newcastle Chief Commercial Officer Peter Silverstone revealed Adidas have “some pretty extraordinary launch plans” to mark the reunion.

Silverstone said: “I don’t need to tell you that Adidas have some pretty extraordinary launch plans for us, which will put us on a global marketing platform, which is fantastic. The bigger we build our brand, and the more profile and activation we do, the more other partners want to partner with us.

“Most importantly, the more we do globally to build our brand, the more people want to be associated with us and follow and support our team. Unlike people who are born in Newcastle, who I would hope will always be Newcastle fans, if you’re born in New York or Riyadh or Beijing or Shanghai, then you don’t have a local connection.

“You follow a club that you relate to, whether that’s the colours of the strip, players, activations like ‘Unsilence the Crowd’, what the city means to you – a whole host of things. It’s really important we grow that global audience and relevance, to then bring in increased commercial revenue.” Mail Sport adds that Newcastle could also play a friendly in Germany although the finer details are still to be signed off. Arsenal were based at the campus last summer and played a friendly against FC Nurnberg, the nearest professional club.

Howe’s men face Urawa Red Diamonds and Yokohama F. Marinos in Toyko before ending their preparations for the new season by participating in the Sela Cup at St James’ Park.