Nike, Adidas no longer soccer kit kings

Those of a certain age will remember when kits worn by English Premier League (EPL) teams were predominantly made by Nike and Adidas. There were always a few lower-profile manufacturers who tried to crash the market, but few succeeded. That’s not the case anymore.

Now there are loads, with new ones popping up all the time, and most with enough street cred to be in the game for the long term. In 2021-22, there were no fewer than ten different kit providers. In 2024-25 there are seven.

a British institution that started providing kits in the 1920s

Adidas is the current leader of the pack, providing kit for seven of the 20 teams, but has six EPL rivals hot on its heels, all looking to dip more than a toe into this lucrative market. Nike is among the chasing pack but so too is Umbro – a British institution that started providing kits in the 1920s – and both are responsible for the sartorial elegance of four teams.  

Wolves go their own way

This season’s new kid on the block is SUDU – a newly formed sportswear firm that is the kit provider for Wolverhampton Wanderers. Despite being new, SUDU is an offshoot of the Levy organization and, therefore, is already linked to Wolves, as well as through the club’s owner, Fosun.

It’s a unique arrangement in terms of the EPL and as part of the launch, the club and SUDU took a subtle swipe at the traditional partnership model favored by most professional football clubs when they tie in with the big global brands like Nike, Adidas, and Umbro.

Two other companies provide kits for just one EPL team – Castore and Macron – while Puma provides just two but one of which is currently, by some distance, the EPL’s biggest “brand.” In a lucrative tie-in with Man City, Puma’s ten-year deal with the club is reported to be worth a staggering ￡65m ($86m) per season and is scheduled to run for ten seasons.

The gist of the tale is, therefore, that the big bucks find their way to the teams that have most exposure, and to have the most exposure you have to be the best.

Puma and Man City – a lucrative combo

Given the value that Man City provides for the Puma brand, the German company will no doubt consider that coughing up around ￡650m ($860m) over a ten-year cycle is providing them with value for money.

Do the math… a Man City replica shirt currently retails at ￡80 ($106) and they sell over a million per season. That alone gives Puma a more-than-healthy profit even before other items of City-related Puma merchandise are added to the equation.

And bear in mind there are five EPL clubs who, in 2023, generated even more money than Man City via the sale of replica kits. The figures involved are mind-blowing and all merely add to the notion that the EPL is now a two-tier league – the big six and the other 14.

The so-called big six were once rumored to be heading off to a European Super League and realistically, only if that ever happens will the EPL get back to anything remotely resembling a level playing field.

Fulham win long service award

But, back in the present, five of the 20 clubs have changed sponsor for the new season, as they search for the lucrative deal that will propel their club forward, either into the top six or the top half of the table.

For those who love a stat, Fulham wins the long-service award, having worn Adidas kits for the last 11 seasons, closely followed by Brighton & Hove Albion who have now been with Nike for a decade.

From the Emirates to the Etihad

But of course, the big money in the EPL doesn’t begin and end with shirt sponsorship. Even bigger money can be leveraged by having someone willing to pay multi-millions to have the name of their company or brand appear on the front of a shirt. It is, after all, reckoned to be the highest-profile soccer league in the world.

Some clubs are intrinsically linked to their shirt sponsor, like Man City and Arsenal, whose stadiums also bear the same names as the front of their shirts. These types of arrangements are ongoing and likely to be in place for the foreseeable future, but for some, getting a lucrative shirt sponsor is an ongoing process and can change from season to season.

11 of the 20 shirts currently carry names linked directly to the gambling industry

Interestingly, despite gambling companies being prohibited from having their name on the front of shirts from the start of the 2026-27 season, 11 of the 20 shirts currently carry names linked directly to the gambling industry.

Betting companies lead the way… for now

The same applies to the lower leagues of the English footballing pyramid where the big money continues to be provided by the brands related to betting.

This has been the case for most of the last decade, with gambling companies hopping aboard the TV gravy train and sponsoring many of the commercial and satellite channels that carry live soccer.

The other industries that sponsor 2024-25 Premier League shirts are financial services (3), airlines (2), entertainment and hospitality (2), and semiconductors (1).

Ed Sheeran’s Tractor Boys

Some teams, like Ipswich Town, chose to take unconventional routes and go for time-limited types of sponsorship. In the Blues’ case, their shirt sponsor is none other than Ed Sheeran, whose shirts, for the second consecutive season, carry the name of his world tour and album, namely +–=÷×.

problematic for the West London club

As things stand, there is just one club without a front-of-shirt sponsor: Chelsea. The Blues missed out on UEFA Champions League football and therefore won’t have the exposure of those who play in Europe’s elite club competition. This has been problematic for the West London club, which has already turned down some less lucrative deals and has opted instead to bide its time until a mega-bucks offer comes in. ???

Chelsea struck a short-term deal with Infinite Athlete to sponsor their shirts across pre-season – the same company name that adorned their shirts for the 2023-24 season – but no longer-term deal could be agreed upon. The Blues are reportedly looking to match the ￡40m ($53m) that Infinite Athlete paid last season, but look to have plenty of negotiating ahead to achieve that total. ??

The EPL haves and have-nots

However, the ￡40m ($53m) that Chelsea hopes to leverage is still dwarfed by some of the deals struck by those teams that will play Champions League soccer in 2024-25.

Manchester City, as ever, leads the field with an annual contracted sum of ￡67.5m ($89m) from Etihad Airways, closely followed by Manchester United whose deal with Snapdragon is worth ￡60m ($79m) per annum. Arsenal is the best of the rest with an annual sum of ￡50m ($66m) received from Emirates. At the other end of the spectrum, and further proof of there being a two-tier EPL is Brentford’s deal with HollywoodBets, which is worth just ￡4m ($5.3), and Bournemouth’s tie-up with BJ88 a mere ￡8m ($10.6).???