The changing pattern of shirt sponsorship

Finance and tech companies have piled into Premier League club sponsorship this season after a ban on gambling operators appearing on the front of shirts opened up some of football’s most valuable advertising space to new bidders. Betting firms have featured on the front of more than half of Premier League shirts over the past two seasons, but a ban agreed by clubs in 2023 came into effect this summer, prompting teams to find new deals. L

Lynsey Pennie-Douglas, head of UK client strategy for Nielsen Sports, told the Financial Times that the changes amounted to “a genuine reset” for the sponsorship market. “Over the past decade, the value of that real estate has risen dramatically,” she added. For clubs outside of the league’s so-called big six — Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham — the average value of front-of-shirt deals has grown from £3.4mn in 2016-17 to around £9mn a year for the new season, according to Nielsen.

Crystal Palace have switched from online betting platform NET88 to Seattle-based AI company Temporal, while Coventry are sponsored by UK fintech Monzo. Everton, whose fans include UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, have switched from gambling group Stake to trading and investment firm CMC Markets, while Aston Villa have swapped betting company Betano for Visit Rwanda. Stake and Betano have been relegated to the sleeves of the respective shirts.

The shake-up marks the latest shift in Premier League sponsorship. In the early years clubs were often sponsored by companies with strong local ties: Newcastle United by Newcastle Brown Ale, West Ham by Dagenham Motors and Southampton by Draper Tools.

But as the league’s global popularity has soared, Premier League shirts have become prime territory for multinational companies such as Emirates and Red Bull, which sponsor Arsenal and Leeds United respectively. Now, only Ipswich Town, whose shirts are emblazoned with the logo of Suffolk-based enterprise software company Halo, are sponsored by a company within 100 miles of their home ground.

In the 1990s, the tech firms that appeared on Premier League shirts were typically computer and office-hardware companies such as Commodore, which sponsored Chelsea, and Sharp, which sponsored Manchester United. Their equivalents today are usually in software or data. Fulham’s new sponsor ClickHouse, for example, describes itself as “specialising in real time analytics, data infrastructure and AI applications”.

Kieran Maguire, associate professor in football finance at the University of Liverpool, expects AI companies specifically to feature more prominently on shirts over the next few years.  “They’re trying to establish themselves . . . in exactly the same way that gambling and crypto [firms] have done historically,” Maguire told the FT. “Football clubs are seen as institutions with an element of integrity and they also appeal to a market who’s likely to be willing to give these products a try.”

In a joint statement with the EFL, the FA and Women’s Super League, the Premier League said the decision to ban gambling firms from the front of shirts was “designed to limit the reach to children and those at risk of gambling-related harm”.

Two clubs — Sunderland and Chelsea — are still actively looking for a sponsor, while Chelsea are about to start a fourth consecutive season without a front-of-shirt sponsor. Maguire said that in some instances there is a disconnect between the sums clubs are seeking and what the market is willing to pay. “I think some clubs are waiting to see who blinks first,” he told the Pink ‘UUn. Clubs are wringing more profit out of their kits in other ways too.

All 20 teams have released a new home shirt this season, a break from the convention of the early years of the Premier League, in which clubs would typically use the same kit for two seasons. The cost of an adult replica jersey for each of the “big six” clubs has risen above the rate of inflation over the past decade, according to FT analysis.

A Tottenham Hotspur home shirt is the most expensive in the league, setting fans back £90. Combined commercial revenue of Premier League teams over that time has ballooned to just under £2.4bn, compared to £58 mn in the inaugural season, according to Maguire.