The gambling industry has become synonymous with the chests of Premier League players’ match shirts. Its lucrative sponsorship contracts have provided clubs with a cash boost during a revenue arms-race, deemed necessary in an era of financial regulation.

The end, though, is seemingly on the horizon, after the English top-flight teams agreed to withdraw front-of-shirt gambling sponsors from the start of the 2026-27 season. But how much will actually change? Will clubs be able to plug the financial gaps left by such a ban, or will sponsors simply find a way around the new rules?

“Who is going to fill that void is going to be interesting,” says Professor Thilo Kunkel, of the Fox School of Business at Temple University in the U.S. city of Philadelphia, whose main research focus is on the development and monetisation of sports brands. “We see massive competition in the financial and technology sector right now and again, like betting, some of those are perceived as less ethical and less desirable, particularly when it comes to some insurances or some financial services that are scrutinised on an ongoing basis.

“I think some of the bigger Chinese companies have been very prominent in sponsoring European championships recently. So I think there’s going to be some of that money flowing into the market.

“Sports betting (sponsorships elsewhere at the club) may be able to fill some of the voids too.”

Football-shirt sponsorship, like the game itself, has evolved dramatically since its first appearance in English football. Fifth-tier Kettering Town were the unlikely pioneers, when they followed in the footsteps of German club Braunschweig in January 1976 by adding the name of a local business, Kettering Tyres, to the front of their shirts for a fixture against Bath City. The FA banned the sponsored shirts after just four days but relented by 1977. Within a decade, every league club would have a main front-of-shirt sponsor.

Since then, sponsorship agreements have mirrored football’s international growth. Businesses from a team’s catchment area have been replaced by globally-focused organisations. Nottingham Forest’s shirts, for instance, were sponsored by a local brewery, Home Ales, in 1987. Today, their players’ chests advertise Kaiyun Sports, an Asian online betting firm not even currently licensed to operate in the United Kingdom.

The change was relatively swift. The 1990s were dominated by electrical-goods companies before telecoms took centre-stage in the 2000s — epitomised by Vodafone and O2 logos on the shirt-fronts of Arsenal and Manchester United respectively during the height of their rivalry. By the 2010s, financial and betting companies had become more commonplace and now, the latter are dominant. Eleven of this season’s 20 Premier League clubs have a gambling sponsor on their shirts, and many of the firms involved do not have an operational interest, or have a very limited presence, in the UK itself.

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The promotion of gambling sponsors, in light of the struggle of those who suffer from addiction but also the perceived targeting of people in countries where gambling is not legal, has caused a backlash and in part has prompted the Premier League to follow the lead of other countries in Europe, including Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, by restricting front-of-shirt sponsorships. The Athletic has betting partnerships with BetMGM in the United States and Betfair in the UK.

Serie A clubs have not been permitted to carry betting brands since 2019, with La Liga following suit in 2021-22. As stated, the Premier League ban will begin from the 2026-27 season. In July, the Premier League, along with the EFL (the three-division league of 72 clubs below the top flight), the FA and the Women’s Super League, formally adopted a new voluntary code of conduct for gambling sponsors. This included limits on both overall reach and promotion to under-18s.

The reason for the dominance of betting sponsors in recent years is a very simple one: they offer more money. “It is a premium, so you’ll probably be looking at 20 per cent more than you would for a traditional, non-betting partner,” says Adrian Wright, a former director at West Bromwich Albion, currently in the second-tier Championship, who now runs sports agency Sporting Group International.

Daniel Haddad, head of commercial strategy at sports agency Octagon, told The Athletic in the summer that a newly-promoted Premier League club can expect around £5million to £6m from selling space on the chests of their matchday shirts. “That’s entry-level front-of-shirt sponsorship for a promoted team and a betting company. If you’re not doing that, you might be looking at £2.5million to £3m, at a push, if it’s non-betting. You might not even get to that level.”

The challenge of replacing betting sponsors is likely to be felt more acutely by clubs outside of the traditional Big Six. None of Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur or Liverpool have had a gambling-related front-of-shirt sponsor since Spurs ended their partnership with Mansion in 2010.

None of the ‘Big Six’ have had betting sponsors since 2010 (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

In an era where financial regulations in the game are tied to revenue, maximising it has been seen as essential to stay competitive.

According to financial services giant Deloitte’s annual football review, the ‘Big Six’ clubs generated an average commercial revenue of £255million in 2022-23, compared to an average of £31m among the other 14 Premier League clubs. Bournemouth had the lowest commercial income at £13m — 30 times less than Manchester City’s £347m, which was the highest in the league.

“The price premium is already an indication that clubs may prefer a different sponsor over the betting sponsor if they were paying equally,” says Professor Kunkel.

“Betting is considered ‘less ethical’ than some other industries. Fast food, alcohol, anything that society could perceive as less desirable or less ethical, that sponsor needs to pay a price premium. This premium (betting), through regulation, is going to go away, so it is going to have a negative impact on the revenue of the clubs. Clubs will need to live with the new reality — charging less for their front-of-shirt sponsorship. It’s not just selling 20 per cent less. It’s actually going to drop more, because this big competition breaks away.”

Clubs have had time to prepare for this new reality, with a three-year grace period, and conversations about withdrawing gambling sponsors ongoing for at least half a decade. It has allowed them to assess alternatives. Cryptocurrency, financial technology and global partners such as airlines and tourism boards have all been cited as possible options, seeking to take advantage of the Premier League’s global reach. Of course, there is no crystal ball.

“In terms of industries, I think we may see a potential re-emergence of crypto,” says Chris Gowland, founder and managing director of sports marketing firm SMG.

“We see quite a lot of B2B (business to business) brands, and tech brands in Formula 1, using it as a global platform not only to showcase their tech and to authentically integrate their technology into a team setup, but to humanise their brand. I think the same is starting to happen with football. 

“There’s also more emphasis on airlines and tourism boards, with sports partnerships seen as a way to promote their destinations globally in key markets — I think Fulham have just announced a deal with Mongolia. I think we’ll see more of those deals and, naturally, airlines are going to continue to invest and they’re inevitably going to want to access a global platform.”

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Cryptocurrency sponsorships spiked in 2022 amid a bull market, before it quickly crashed later that year. In 2021-22, all but one club had a cryptocurrency sponsor, and all of those cryptocurrencies crashed or suffered a loss in value.

“It is market-dependent,” says Gowland. “I think if it continues to surge, then we will see more brands investing. We have already seen it in the last year or so, where Kraken and OKX have been investing — the latter in McLaren F1 and with Manchester City. I think the brands that stayed strong during the ‘crypto winter’, which was like a cleansing process to a degree, will start to return.”

The question of whether other brands will be able to replicate the deals currently provided by betting firms remains to be seen. But there is another question to ask.

Training kit sponsorship is an increasingly lucrative market (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Will there even be a large void at all?

As it stands, betting companies are not going to disappear from the football landscape in 2026, nor from players’ shirts entirely. The coming ban refers to front-of-shirt sponsors and does not preclude sleeve sponsorships, which were first permitted in 2017-18.

“What will happen is all the front-of-shirt sponsors will transition onto the sleeve,” says Wright. “That’s a potential opportunity to retain their position on the primary asset as a sleeve sponsor, which will still come with electronic advertising, television backdrop, and everything that comes with the front (of a team’s shirts). But I think that will also inflate that market. The sleeve market will see a spike as a result of those betting brands coming to that asset.”

Agreements will not cease with clubs, who can advertise in many other ways too.

“Teams are going to be more creative with what they offer,” says Gowland. “If you look at the training-kit asset, probably even two or three years ago, it wasn’t really that prominent, but the emergence of social media and digital platforms has made the training kit quite an interesting asset.

“I think the lifestyle element, fashion, makes casual wear for a football club really interesting for brands to engage with. I don’t necessarily think there will be a direct void, just more creative ways of factoring in betting across different formats, but while also entertaining new front-of-shirt options.”

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That prime real estate on the chests of a team’s matchday shirt might not be entirely out of the picture, either. New front-of-shirt rules could be vulnerable to loopholes if they are not stringent. This has already happened elsewhere. In India, gambling is banned but football clubs in the Indian Super League have adopted principal shirt sponsors that are very similar to betting brands. FC Goa, for instance, announced a sponsor called Wolf777 News in September. There is also a betting company called Wolf777, with nearly identical branding.

“We see what’s called subordinate brands appearing, and I’m not too sure whether the Premier League are going to close the gap on that one,” says Wright. “We’ve seen deals done in territories that have banned betting on the front of the shirt and people are just re-badging their brands in different ways to circumvent the rules.”

The Premier League has already issued guidance to clubs which covers this issue. A source at the league, kept anonymous to protect relationships, said that if sponsor agreements with brands have subsidiary or associated businesses that are to do with gambling, the front-of-shirt advertising cannot promote that gambling element.

(Top photos: Getty Images)