BOS – More bookmakers to move away from football sponsorship

Henry Chappell, Founder of Pitch Marketing Group, expects more bookmakers to start looking at other options outside of football for marketing purposes.

Football remains the biggest sport for sponsorship in this country, accounting for 80% of all deals made. For the 2016/17 season, 10 of the 20 Premier League clubs have betting companies as shirt sponsors, although this doesn’t include any of the teams expected to fight for the top four positions.

The biggest clubs in the Premier League are still dealing with bookmakers, but are able to do so in a less visible way because they can find other, more profitable ways to commercialise their assets. For example, Manchester United are estimated to bring in around £28 million per season from its shirt sponsorship deal with American car-makers Chevrolet.

Therefore, Chappell predicts that bookmakers will start to look for greater value for money in other sports, rather than targeting the smaller football teams. For example, Dafabet has recently made the move into Esports sponsorship with Fnatic, whilst Heineken, long term sponsors of the UEFA Champions League, recently announced a global partnership deal with Formula One.

Chappell was talking on the ‘Different ball game’ panel discussion at Betting on Sports 2016, alongside Carmelo Mazza (OIA Service Ltd) and John Lee (BD Sport). The session was moderated by SBC Media Director, Scott Longley.