Newcastle agree £25m shirt sponsorship deal

Newcastle United have agreed a new shirt sponsorship deal worth an estimated £25 million a year.  The Times understands that the new deal is with a company from another Middle Eastern country rather than Saudi Arabia.

Officials at St James’ Park plan to unveil the new commercial partner, who will replace Fun88, a betting company whose agreement with Newcastle predated the £305 million takeover in October 2021 and was worth less than £8 million a year, next month. Newcastle struck an agreement with Fun88 last year to end their front-of-shirt sponsorship two years early.

Newcastle sources insist that the new agreement with a company from the Middle East will fall inside the Premier League’s “fair market value”, a regulation that was introduced in December 2021 to counter any potential commercial dealings the club undertook after Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund (PIF) took an 80 per cent holding in the club in October of that year. PIF is a sovereign wealth fund with an estimated worth of about £700 billion.

Champions League football would guarantee the club at least £50 million from participation, prize money and the TV pool as well as opening up new commercial possibilities as a result of much greater exposure. That figure will be higher if they advance beyond the group stage in the competition.

Newcastle are also set for a further boost of £35 million in revenue because of their success this season under Eddie Howe. Newcastle will have featured in live games on 30 occasions by the time this season ends, giving them a facility fee of £34.3 million, a significant increase from last season’s £19.8 million, and their merit payment, if they were to remain in third position in the Premier League table, would be about £17 million higher than for the previous campaign.

Those are transformative figures, allied to a new front-of-shirt sponsor, with Newcastle potentially boosting their £180 million turnover by about 50 per cent.

Newcastle have spent £250 million in the three transfer windows that followed the take-over by PIF, Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners and RB Sports & Media. They broke the club’s record transfer to sign Alexander Isak last summer and spent £40 million on Bruno Guimaraes and £35 million on Sven Botman.

There has also been £5 million spent on a redevelopment of the club’s training ground at Benton, including the building of a hydro-therapy pool. The club are still looking for land to build a facility that will eventually house the first team, the academy and the club’s women’s team.