Changing course

The English Premier League (EPL) has announced that its teams agreed to a front-of-shirt ban on gambling sponsors.

There had been speculation for months that such a decision could be reached amid growing pressure from the government, although a delayed white paper on gambling reform allowed the league to continually kick the can further down the road.

will make a noticeable impact on all clubs with such deals

The ban, agreed upon on Thursday, will come into effect at the start of the 2026-27 season to allow teams to honor their current deals. The financial impact will be received differently by each team, but will make a noticeable impact on all clubs with such deals in place.?

EPL gambling sponsors banned

The EPL is by far the most expensive league in the world. Earlier this year, Chelsea spent more money in the January transfer window than Europe’s other four leagues combined.?

Gambling’s growing prevalence in the UK and other countries has sparked many conversations about stricter control of the market, hence the new sponsorship ban. That decision will not cripple the league, but will force teams, especially the less popular ones, to find new revenue streams.

much-needed stimulus for a club that reported ￡55.5m ($69.5m) in pre-tax losses

Bournemouth, one of three clubs promoted from the EFL Championship at the end of last season, has an agreement with online betting company Dafabet that reportedly earns the franchise $5m per year. That’s over 41% of its $12.1m in annual sponsorship revenue and a much-needed stimulus for a club that reported ￡55.5m ($69.5m) in pre-tax losses for the year ending June 30, 2022.

Fulham, another of the recently promoted crop of EPL teams, signed a club-record deal with W88 worth ￡4m ($5m) ahead of its return to the top flight of English soccer. That deal is responsible for 54.1% of the club’s sponsorship money during the 2022-23 season, but is not enough to overcome the massive losses taken on in recent years.

Southampton did not come up with the previous teams, but is faced with the possibility of relegation. Its front-of-shirt sponsor, sportsbet.io, came with a price tag in excess of ￡7.5m ($9.4m) per year, or 53.6% of sponsorship revenue in 2022. The club also took on a pre-tax loss of ￡6m ($7.5m) during the same year.

Although that figure was down over 50% on the year prior, the club could be in financial purgatory if it is relegated from the EPL and loses out on television rights that brought in ￡111.8m ($140m) in 2022.

A different perspective

What about the bigger and more popular EPL clubs? How does the front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship ban impact them?

Only one team in position to qualify for European competition next season—that is, in the top seven spots in the table—has a gambling company emblazoned on the front of its kit. That team is Newcastle.

The Magpies recently became the richest club in the world after they were taken over by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), and they are also sponsored by Fun88 for ￡6.5m ($8.1m) annually. That is worth roughly 32.8% of the club’s 2022 sponsorship revenue.

Newcastle is cutting its deal with Fun88 short at the end of the season, however, to free up room for a new more lucrative sponsor, which fits well with the new ban. 

none of the traditional “Big Six” clubs have front-of-shirt gambling sponsors

None of the other teams atop the league table and none of the traditional “Big Six” clubs have front-of-shirt gambling sponsors. Manchester City, champions of four of the last five seasons, had an eight-figure deal with Marathonbet to sponsor its training kits until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused the company, which started in Russia, to shutter its UK operations.?

Teams will not have much trouble attracting other sponsors. The EPL has an estimated worldwide audience of 643 million homes and 4.7 billion people. It is also quickly growing in popularity in the USA and is drawing more interest from streaming platforms.

So while the front-of-shirt sponsorship ban will inevitably have an impact on regular operations, especially for the smaller teams in the league, the EPL itself will be just fine.