The separation was never going to be immediate. The Premier League’s 20 clubs might have voted to ban front-of-shirt gambling sponsors in April, but not without first insisting upon a long goodbye.
A three-year grace period has afforded clubs the chance to make hay and the summer has shown only a partial willingness to shun the hand that has so often fed them.
Of the four fresh shirt sponsorships confirmed by Premier League clubs in the past month, three have been with betting companies.
Only Newcastle United, who replaced the gambling firm Fun88 with Saudi events company Sela in a deal worth a reported £25million ($32m) per season, have so far broken the trend set by Aston Villa (BK8), Burnley (W88) and Fulham (SBOTOP).
Even Brentford, whose star striker Ivan Toney was diagnosed with a gambling addiction during his Football Association trial, have extended their existing partnership with South African firm Hollywoodbets for another two years. West Ham United (Betway), Everton (Stake) and Bournemouth (Dafabet) also continue with their own long-term deals.
The number might have grown further had Chelsea not walked away from discussions with Stake, the online casino, over a proposed one-year deal, but new partnerships ensure there will still be at least seven Premier League clubs carrying the names of betting companies in 2023-24.
That is both a measure of the financial incentives on offer and of the jolt that will come to the marketplace in the next three years. The easiest money (to most) now has a receding shelf life.
There will still be other opportunities, like sleeve sponsorships and perimeter advertising, but change is coming to the commercial landscape. Against gentle coaxing from the UK government, whose long-awaited review of the betting industry was published in April, the Premier League’s compromise was to prohibit the visibility of gambling brands from the front of shirts by 2026-27.
Aston Villa, for one, were well aware of the cut-off. Their partnership with BK8, replacing online car retailer Cazoo, will run for the next three years and is the club’s most lucrative commercial deal yet. The backlash from supporters, who opposed the backing of a company ditched by Norwich in 2021, counted for very little.
“The BK8 agreement is a cynical last-minute attempt to scoop the financial gains ahead of the voluntary ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsors,” said the Aston Villa Supporters’ Trust.
Fulham’s newly agreed union with SBOTOP was perhaps accepted more readily. This, after all, is a club that was the first in the Premier League to carry a betting sponsor in 2002-03. The latest partnership is their sixth with a betting company. Burnley, too, found the offer of W88 too good to turn down after winning promotion as the Championship’s title winners in April.
“These clubs do have a choice but I don’t think for many it’s a particularly long conversation because of the pressures facing commercial departments,” says Ged Colleypriest, founder of Underdog, the sports marketing company.
“These clubs often have to take the money that’s on the table. I don’t think many would consider turning it down considering the dominance bookmaking sponsors have had over recent years. They are ultimately the easiest place for commercial departments to pick up money.
“There’s always pressure on commercial teams because you need to make hay in the Premier League. Take Burnley, who did a lovely sponsorship with Classic Football Shirts and looked great. As soon as they went up, the priorities immediately change. They need to maximise their time in the Premier League and they’ve fallen back to the bookies.”
Not all have done the same, though. Sheffield United have reportedly turned down three different offers from betting companies and intend their next, yet-to-be-confirmed sponsor to be family-friendly.
Luton Town, winners of the Championship play-off final in May, are another to have previously made a stand. They devoted a home game last November to The Big Step, a charity launched to kick gambling advertising out of football.
These are not always easy decisions, though. Money versus morals is an awkward contest with so much at stake. Especially for those newly promoted clubs.
“The rule of thumb is somewhere around £5million to £6m,” says Daniel Haddad, head of commercial strategy at sports agency Octagon. “That’s entry level front-of-shirt sponsorship for a promoted team and a betting company.
“If you’re not doing that, you might be looking at £2.5million to £3m at a push if it’s non-betting. You might not even get to that level. A sponsor you have in the Championship might not be able to come with you, that’s why these all have a break clause. You’re usually looking at three, four, five times the amount once you’re in the Premier League.
“It’s a balance. It’s a league where your cost base has to be high to be competitive. A couple of million extra can be the difference between a positive financial result and losing money as a club.
“You don’t have much time to get a sponsor in over the summer and betting companies typically have a pot of money that’s up for grabs. Even a club promoted by the play-offs can still get that. Most clubs would want 12 to 18 months in market to replace a front-of-shirt sponsor properly, going through the full process.”
That is where Chelsea’s ongoing problems are found, a club with neither a front-of-shirt nor sleeve sponsor secured in time for their 2023-24 kits to be launched on Monday morning.
Chelsea’s previous deals with Three and WhaleFin, together worth £60million, will not be carried into this season and, as yet, replacements have not been found.
Three, a deal worth £40million per season, had no intention of extending after its partnership became strained during the time of sanctions against former owner Roman Abramovich. Cryptocurrency trading platform WhaleFin, meanwhile, had to abort a five-year deal after just seven months owing to financial challenges.
Sourcing a replacement has been onerous for Chelsea. A proposed front-of-shirt deal with Paramount Plus was blocked by the Premier League due to concerns it could irk existing broadcast rights holders, while talks with Stake, the online casino that backs Everton, are not expected to bring a solution after opposition from fans groups was made clear. Chelsea Supporters’ Trust said 77 per cent of its members opposed the partnership.
With little more than a month to go before the Premier League’s opening weekend, there is a chance Chelsea will begin the season with an enormous commercial shortfall.
Chelsea, believes Haddad, have been “a victim of timing”. He adds: “They’ve been dealt an unfortunate hand with how it’s played out.”
Colleypriest concurs. “The big curve ball in this was the disruption of their sponsorship deal with Three in light of the invasion of Ukraine. Then came an ownership change. The other thing it perhaps reflects is how they had such a poor season on the pitch.
“That will always put pressure on commercial teams, particularly with global brands. Chelsea remain a huge name but they’re probably now fishing in a pool they’re not used to being in.”
The collapsed Stake deal is also an indicator of the mood of fans, according to Colleypriest. “We are seeing more of a backlash from fans now. It’s always been there, this underlying desire to not be associated with bookmakers.”
Chelsea’s struggles are unusual and set them apart from the ‘Big Six’, where £40million per season has become the minimum expectation for a shirt sponsor. Liverpool (Standard Chartered) and Tottenham (AIA) have deals running until 2027, while Manchester City have a long-running arrangement with Etihad Airways that covers naming rights for the stadium, training complex and shirt.
Arsenal have their own cross-platform deal with Emirates, with a shirt sponsorship running to the end of 2023-24, but the industry expectation is for an extended deal.
Manchester United are one club certainly in the market for a new primary commercial partner after announcing in December they had mutually agreed to buy back the five-year deal with TeamViewer, due to expire in 2026. The German tech company, though, will remain on United shirts until a replacement is found. That will not be until 2024-25 at the earliest.
“I see the market in general for the elite Premier League clubs, the volume and quantity of deals, still being pretty good,” says Haddad.
“The kit assets, which have that high point of entry, have been impacted if you’re trying to get to those high numbers. That could be down to a few things, like economic headwinds. The Champions League being in the market for new commercial partners (from 2024-25) can also play a role.
“I’d never say F1 could rival elite-level football, but now we’re definitely seeing that. Maybe not on the same scale metrics but the general perception of F1 being a growing sport. I see Chelsea and Manchester United now competing against Red Bull, McLaren — those big teams that are very active in the market.”
Those elite clubs have been dependent on money from the gambling sector. Not since Tottenham parted with Mansion in 2010 have one of those clubs carried a betting company’s branding on their shirts, but for the other 14 Premier League clubs, it has become a reliable source of revenue that has served to warp financial expectations of those fighting to keep pace.
“If you’re outside that tier one, whether that’s Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United, bookmakers are always in the conversation,” says Colleypriest.
“It’ll take another big sector to come in and spend big in sponsorship. There was cryptocurrency spending big for a short while but it now looks as though that bubble has burst. We saw Cazoo and Cinch as well, but they’ve both considerably reduced their sponsorship spend.
“It’s not clear who will fill the void, but I wouldn’t quite see this as the last chance to take the bookmakers’ money. This self-governed ban doesn’t come in for another three seasons and only applies to the front-of-shirt sponsor. I’m sure we’ll still see the money coming in on sleeves or the back of shirts.
“It will definitely still be present on LED perimeter boards as well, so there will still be a huge amount of visibility. The opportunities will still be there for clubs.”
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