A new study by UK market research firm Caytoo reveals that gambling brands make up 15.4% of all English football main shirt deals. The analysis Front of Shirt Sponsors Report 2023 states that gambling companies, as a sub-sector of the Consumer Services category, saw its total number of deals fall by just one during the period considered by Caytoo. This is despite the Premier League’s impending ban on such deals, which will come into place at the end of the 2025/26 season. In fact, numerous clubs in English soccer’s top flight (including Aston Villa, Burnley and Fulham) are signed up betting companies as their primary kit sponsor for the upcoming campaign.
Some findings
In a general perspective, industrials have overtaken Consumer Services as the most prevalent sector for front of shirt sponsorships (FoS) in football, rugby and cricket teams in England. Industrials now accounts for 14.5% of front of shirt sponsorships (1 in every 7 deals) across the 225 teams in the latest annual analysis, a 10% increase over the last year and a 60% one over the last four years.
It has overtaken Consumer Services (12.7% share) partly due to the latter experiencing a 15% decline in the number of deals. Yet, this decline hasn’t been driven by the Gambling sub-sector, which is responsible for only one less deal than a year ago: it is still comfortably the most common sub-sector (at 9.1% or 1 in every 11 deals), way ahead of Manufacturing/Engineering at 6.8%.
About this, Alex Burmaster, Head of Research and Analysis at Caytoo, commented: “The ban on front of shirt gambling sponsorships, which comes into effect in three years, plus the increasing outcry from fan groups on such deals, has had almost no impact over the last year. Over a third of Premier League teams still have a front of shirt gambling sponsor. This shows that the economic realities and fierce competition in football trump other considerations, and the clubs will need to keep taking gambling’s money until they’re no longer legally allowed to.”
Differences by sport
Industrials is the most common sector overall, as it also is in cricket and rugby. However, in football, the honour goes to Consumer Services due to the Gambling sub-sector, which accounts for 15.4% of football’s FoS sponsors (the highest share of any sub-sector among the three sports) compared to 4.9% in cricket and just 0.03% in rugby.
Manufacturing/Engineering is the most common sub-sector in cricket (at 9.8%), compared to 9.1% in rugby and 3.8% in football (3.8%). Home/Garden retail is the most common sub-sector sponsor in rugby (10.9%) compared to 0.03% in football and none in cricket.
Nevertheless, overall, Utilities and Education are the most reliant sectors on football (100% of their FoS deals across the three sports are all in football). Real Estate is the most reliant on cricket (43% of all deals being in cricket) while Information Technology is the most reliant on rugby (57% of all deals being in rugby).
Women’s versus men’s
Travel & Tourism overtook six other sectors to become the most prevalent front of shirt sponsorships sector among women’s teams (accounting for 15.8% of deals). This was driven by Travel Agencies, who had the biggest rise in the number of deals among women’s teams.
In contrast, Automotive (which was the joint most prevalent sector last year) saw the biggest decrease in deals, falling from 5 to just 1 (a drop of 80%). Overall, Information Technology is the most concentrated sector around women’s teams (57% of its FoS deals are for women). In contrast, five sectors (Real Estate, Utilities, Health & Wellbeing, Education and Telecoms) allocate all their activity to men’s teams and none to women’s.
“There’s little doubt that women’s sport is receiving more exposure and goodwill than ever including a lot of talk from sponsors about how committed they are to gender equality using major international sporting events. Though, it’s clear from the research that many sectors have work to do in terms of translating this lip service beyond signature global events down to domestic teams,” concluded Burmaster.