SportPesa, 32Red, BK 8: The Place of Gambling In English Football and How Are The Leagues Dealing With Gambling Companies

With clubs, the likes of Everton, Norwich, and Preston parting ways with their betting sponsors and the recent announcement of banning gambling advertisement on club shirts for the English Clubs by the House of Lords Select Committee has furthermore cemented a current trend in English Football of standing against the promotion of gambling. How are the clubs involved are going to deal with these changes?

The irony of supporting BLM and Mental Health Issues in a system that allows more than half of its teams to be sponsored by betting companies was quickly pointed out by the people as gambling has been a persistent threat to the youths of England over the last decade. The promotion of gambling in the name of sponsorship and advertisement helped normalize it and make the issue further problematic as 1.7% of the teenagers aged between 11-16 could already be classified as ''Problem Gamblers''-that's roughly around 55000 young people across England, Scotland, and Wales.

The 2020/21 season has seen 10 of the 20 English Premier League clubs having betting companies as their main kit sponsors, promoting several established names of the gambling world on their jersey front. The number increases to 17 out of 24 clubs in the Championship, the league itself being sponsored by Sky Bet, yet another big betting company.

According to EFL, the gambling sectors contributes around €40 million to the league and its clubs which, in the present situation of coronavirus pandemic, is a significant contribution and is more important than it has ever been. EFL also made their displeasure about the Lord’s announcement clear as they preferred the association between football and gambling sector to “collaborate” and take an evidence-based approach to prevent gambling harms rather than throwing around blanket bans.

 

 We have seen Everton walk away from their betting sponsor SportPesa last year as the club found it beneficial to terminate the existing contract between the two parties. The highly controversial five-year deal signed with SportPesa by the club in 2017 made it one of the most high-profile sponsorship deals in the Premier League. But for a club that places great emphasis on its fight for mental health and community initiatives, having a betting company as their main kit sponsor wasn’t exactly justifying their morals and ethos. Everton was also unable to use SportPesa's logo on children's kits when under sponsorship with the company to avoid negative perceptions from the fans.

 

An early termination was agreed upon by the two parties after a discussion meeting that saw the termination of the contract which was estimated at around €7 million a season. The club went for Cazoo, a British online car retailer company as their new sponsor to make commercial grounds after their relationship with SportPesa ended.

Newly promoted Premier League side Norwich City also had their fair share of trouble with their new betting sponsor BK8 as the partnership announcement with the Malta-based online casino targeted toward Asian markets has seen massive backlash from the fans of the club. A deal believed to be worth somewhere around €5 million was not enough to make the fans satisfied with an obscure financial structure surrounding the contract.

What added more fuel to the fire was the poor advertising choices of the company as young women in revealing clothing was a regular theme of the company's advertising and marketing, clearly not the ideal partner for a club that has strong values and community. The BK8 social media was also caught posting some controversial posts on their social media accounts and later was removed from requests from Norwich authorities.

The deal was terminated with immediate effect by Norwich after an agreement was settled upon after continuous discussion.

On the other side of the dice, Preston North End has also parted ways with their previous partner, 32Red, another online betting company based in the UK. The increased concern over the collaboration of the two parties was the driving factor behind the termination of the contract and Preston has moved on to a new ''non-betting'' sponsor for the new season, according to Peter Ridsdale, advisor to the owner of Preston North End.

The growing trend of contract termination by the clubs with gambling companies and the newly implemented announcement of banning betting sponsor promotion has left many clubs with complications to deal with. The clubs like Stoke City will be one of the huge parties to deal with tough complications as the club is owned by betting company Bet365, with club CEO and Vice Chairman, the stadium is also named Bet365.

 The 192-page report published by The House of Lord Select Committee was considerate of this issue as they gave the clubs from Championship to the lower tiers time until 2023 to get their arrangements fixed, while the clubs in the Premier League were to drop the betting company's logo from their shirt with immediate effect.

The clubs in the Premier League received around €82 million from the gambling sector. The Championship also reported a contribution of €46 million a season to the league and its clubs. And with the dire situation due to the recent pandemic, this sum of money is important than ever before. So a shift from betting sponsors might come with huge risks for clubs in the lower tier of English football, most of them failing to meet profit at the end of the season.

With the next season starting around August, we have seen Everton and Norwich shake hands with Cazoo and Lotus Cars, two automotive companies as their front-of-shirt sponsor. A good number of telecommunication brands are also off to hand their service to the clubs now that the demand will be an all-time high for clubs moving away from their gambling partners.

It will be highly interesting to see the shift in the sponsorship race and how well the clubs will be able to adapt to a new financial structure surrounding the new sponsorship deals.