Premier League takes St Augustine approach to gambling

England’s Premier League has announced the end of front-of-shirt betting sponsorship – but not just yet – and gambling brands will continue to appear on less prominent shirt positions.

Eight football clubs will be affected by the ban, due to come into force in the 2026-27 season, with some £60m of annual revenues at stake. Gambling sponsorship will still be permitted on shirt sleeves, however, and on pitch-side advertising hoardings.

Context

The announcement gets ahead of possible legislation by the government (a white paper setting out a review of the 2005 Gaming Act is overdue) and reduces the chances of a stricter outcome that might sever gambling links altogether. Betting brands will become slightly less visible in top-flight football but they’ll still be important contributors to the lower leagues. 

But the issue isn’t going away. Campaigners liken gambling advertising around football to the cigarette advertising that for many years supported Formula 1 racing before it was eventually banned.

• Just as F1 found new sponsors, so too will football clubs, if not quite at the same financial level as before. One fan consultation group reported earlier this year that “the commercial reality is that, to teams outside the top six, such sponsors [betting brands] offer clubs twice as much financially as non-gambling companies”.
• The actual amounts involved, however, are small compared to the sums brought in by media rights deals. That may open new opportunities for smaller brands. Last summer, for example, relegated club Burnley replaced betting firm Spreadex as shirt sponsor with local business Classic Football Shirts.

Final thought 

“If the gambling ads are the only thing paying all your bills, it is understandable that you’d want to keep them. But if they’re just paying the bill for making already fabulously rich footballers a little bit more rich, that makes zero sense for organisations that are not merely businesses but community concerns” – John Nicholson, Football 365.

Sourced from Financial Times, Politico, BBC, Business Live, Football365

[Image: English Premier League]