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- Premier League clubs are starting the new season without gambling companies on the front of matchday shirts under a voluntary league-wide restriction.
- Eight returning clubs had to replace betting shirt sponsors, creating opportunities for companies such as ClickHouse, Fulham’s new principal partner.
- Betting companies can still sponsor sleeves, training wear and other football inventory, prompting a shift rather than a total ban.
Premier League clubs are starting the new season without gambling companies on the front of their matchday shirts, as a league-wide restriction takes effect.
The change has forced eight of the league’s 20 clubs to find new front-of-shirt partners for the 2026/27 season, putting some of the most valuable advertising real estate in global sports on the market at the same time.
At Fulham Football Club, online betting company SBOTOP has been replaced by ClickHouse, a Silicon Valley data infrastructure company.
With several clubs all looking for new sponsors at the same time, companies such as ClickHouse suddenly had access to opportunities that might otherwise have been harder to come by.
“There’s a unique opportunity to become a sponsor of such an institution, and we just couldn’t pass it up,” Tanya Bragin, vice president of product and marketing at ClickHouse, told CNBC.
The influx of available sponsorship inventory may also have given prospective partners greater leverage in negotiations.
“If there’s more inventory coming on the market at the same time, it’s a buyer’s market,” Bragin said.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean Premier League sponsorship has become cheaper. Bragin said the opportunities presented to ClickHouse remained competitive, reflecting continued demand for exposure through one of the world’s most-watched sports leagues.
For ClickHouse, choosing a Premier League club was not simply about finding the biggest name available. Sponsoring one of the Premier League’s biggest clubs would have required a considerably larger investment, making Fulham — which finished 11th in the 20-team league last season — a more attractive proposition.
“Transparently speaking, top teams are obviously going to be a much bigger investment for us to sponsor them,” Bragin said. “Until maybe we’re a public company, I was like, you know, maybe mid-table would be ideal in terms of price range.”
London was another major factor, with ClickHouse viewing the partnership with a team based in the U.K. capital as both a global marketing opportunity and an ideal venue for entertaining customers and partners.
“For me personally, in terms of leading our marketing and go-to-market efforts, hospitality was key,” Bragin said.
For bookmakers, Premier League sponsorship offered access to millions of potential customers who could directly use their products. The companies replacing them may value football for entirely different reasons.
That shift is playing out elsewhere across the league, with new sectors moving into positions previously occupied by betting brands. Everton replaced betting company Stake with financial services firm CMC Markets, while Brentford swapped Hollywoodbets for recruitment platform Indeed.
But the bookmakers themselves aren’t necessarily leaving football. Henry Beesley, marketing manager at British bookmaker Fitzdares, said the industry has had years to prepare.
“It’s been on the horizon for a while. Bookmakers are prepared for it,” Beesley told CNBC.
Gambling sponsorship moves elsewhere
Premier League clubs can still feature betting brands on their sleeves and training kits, while English Football League clubs — those in the country’s four other divisions of professional soccer — are not subject to the voluntary restriction.
That leaves bookmakers with other ways to maintain their presence in English football and could make some of that remaining sponsorship inventory more valuable.
“Increasingly, bookmakers are going to be on the sleeve sponsorship, and the value of those sleeve sponsorships is going to increase significantly,” Beesley said.
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Manchester United recently signed a training kit sponsorship with Betway reportedly worth up to £20 million ($27 million) a year, while Tottenham Hotspur also carries a betting brand on its training wear.
For bookmakers, the restrictions could therefore require a change in strategy rather than an exit from football.
“It’s about being a little bit more strategic,” Beesley said. “We try and ask ourselves, ‘How do we keep telling our brand story through our sponsorships?’ And that’s ultimately got to be the focus.”
The continued presence of betting brands elsewhere in the game has also raised questions over how much the restriction will ultimately reduce fans’ exposure to gambling advertising, or whether some of that spending and visibility will simply move elsewhere.
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