David Beckham takes £39m dividend as World Cup deals drive record profits

David Beckham has taken a $51m (£39m) dividend from his business empire fuelled by a series of deals with brands for the Fifa World Cup.

Beckham appeared in about a dozen ad campaigns across this summer’s tournament in the US, working with brands including Lenovo, McDonald’s, Bank of America, Verizon and PepsiCo’s crisps brand Lay’s.

The World Cup work helped to fuel a record year for DRJB Holdings, the commercial company for Beckham’s brands business, where revenues surged by a fifth to $110.5m last year, from $92.3m in 2024.

Pre-tax profits also climbed to a record $65.7m, a 46% increase on 2024.

DRJB Holdings – which is made up of three divisions, the largest of which is DB Ventures, which covers most of his partnerships with brands such as Hugo Boss – paid out $51.1m to shareholders last year, compared with $53m the previous year.

The former England captain, who retired from professional football in 2013, sold a 55% stake in his businesses in 2022 to the US group Authentic Brands for £200m, meaning he took home 45% of last year’s total dividend.

However, the Companies House filing, which will be published next week, shows that a further $61.6m was paid in special dividends this year. This means the 51-year-old was paid out about $51m.

Ahead of this year’s World Cup the company secured partnerships including a multi-year deal with Bank of America: Beckham became an ambassador for its global sports programme.

He also launched menswear collections for Hugo Boss, an eponymous range of spectacles for Safilo and a limited edition Predator football boot with Adidas.

He also struck a new deal for Beckham & Friends Live, a show on Paramount+ that ran around the Uefa Champions League.

Beckham featured in a Stella Artois campaign alongside Theo James to mark the beer’s partnership for the second season of Netflix series The Gentlemen.

DRJB Holdings is jointly owned by Authentic Brands Group and Footwork Productions, controlled by David Beckham.

Corey Salter, chief executive of entertainment at Authentic Brands, said David Beckham was “one of the most powerful global brands in sport, lifestyle, entertainment and much more”.

She added: “What these results show is that behind the Beckham brand is a strong and highly effective team within Authentic, set up with the financial discipline and strong fundamentals to continue to grow profitably through 2026 and beyond.”

DRJB Holdings includes the Seven Global division, which contains licensing agreements with companies such as Adidas. The remainder of the business is Studio 99, the production company that made the four-part Netflix documentary Beckham that was released in 2023. It also produced Victoria Beckham’s Netflix documentary, which was released last year.

Beckham is also an investor in businesses including the supplement specialist IM8, which he co-founded in 2024, and honey-based fruit snack firm BeeUp.