Gambling sponsorship in football isn’t going anywhere – it’s just shifting. Welcome to the age of the bet365 matcha latte, William Hill Holidays and 0% Betway Bubbles. Because when regulation tightens, creativity (or cynicism) explodes.
Let’s not be naive; gambling brands aren’t leaving football, they’re evolving. And they’ll do what every restricted industry has done before, namely build ancillary products, proxy brands and regulatory workarounds to stay in front of fans. We’ve seen it in Europe: betting domains with .news, .info, .tv plastered on LED boards to skirt local advertising restrictions. We’ve seen beer brands make water to keep their names in lights.
And now? We’ll see gambling brands build lifestyle offshoots, category-adjacent pop-ups and ‘content hubs’ that exist solely to preserve visibility. But is there another way…
The obsession with exposure
As clubs start reworking their inventory, the first stop is sleeves and training kits – and actually this might be an upgrade. For years, gambling brands have clung to one belief: the front of a Premier League shirt is everything.
This real estate has been football’s most valuable billboard. It’s where brand equity is built; on broadcast, in highlights, across video games and on shirts worn by fans. For gambling brands, it’s been a fast track to global awareness and cultural legitimacy. But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud: it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I should know, I’ve put plenty of operators on fronts of shirts.
Matchday accounts for just a fraction of the football calendar. It’s high impact, sure, but it’s not high frequency. Now contrast that with the training kit, which is worn seven days a week, in pre-match interviews, post-match walk-throughs, behind-the-scenes content and, most importantly, on players’ own social media channels where engagement is high and brand association is personal.
You’re no longer just renting space on a shirt, you’re embedding into the culture, the rhythm and the storytelling of the modern football club. Fans don’t just follow clubs; they follow players, personalities and content. The training kit sits at the heart of that world.
Given the restrictions in activating in this sector, brands will have to be creative, and they’ll also have to apportion rights to third parties to activate for them. Think branded content series (have you ever listened to the Adopted Geordies podcast by BetMGM?). Player interviews in training kit. Social-first storytelling. The training kit is not a downgrade but an opportunity to own a new kind of attention.
As players prepare for matchday, operators can own the conversation. As players predict what might happen on pitch, operators can price it. Having concluded four training kit deals in the Premier League over the last five years, I can point you to the fact that the return on ad spend (ROAS) on that asset outweighs the front-of-matchday shirt.
Here’s the problem: most clubs aren’t ready
There’s a belief that lost front-of-shirt revenue will just be absorbed by hiking up the price of everything else: sleeves, training wear, press backdrops, dugouts, etc. But it doesn’t work like that. Sponsors are more sophisticated now. They don’t want bigger logos, they want more relevance, more data, more story. The price of a property means nothing without context or cut-through.
And frankly, too many clubs are selling without understanding what brands actually want. There’s still a massive disconnect between clubs and their commercial partners and, by extension, the fans. Most sponsorships feel transactional: logo here, a few posts there, and the occasional corporate box. That’s not partnership – that’s wallpaper.
And it’s why most fans couldn’t care less what’s on their team’s sleeve. Clubs need to realign their commercial teams to accommodate this shift. Some have, but most haven’t even thought about it.
If you want value, you need connection
The next generation of sponsorship must be about building stories that mean something to fans, to communities, to culture. Brands can’t just show up with cash. They need to show up with purpose. And clubs need to stop pretending that ‘impressions’ are enough.
This shift might actually improve the quality of sponsorships. Most rights holders don’t understand brands and they definitely don’t understand what brands need. They’ll be more data-driven, more targeted and more creatively activated. The smarter gambling brands will lean into content, community and storytelling, aligning with clubs on more than just visibility metrics.
To be honest, they probably won’t even try to sell you anything, they’ll just be part of the conversation. Try telling that to your CFO. So yes, we’re waving goodbye to gambling on the front of shirts. But let’s be real: we’re not banning it, we’re just pushing it sideways.
The smart brands will pivot. The smart clubs will adapt. And somewhere, in a high street pop-up or a TikTok ad, someone’s going to order a bet365 matcha latte. And it’ll work. Because the game hasn’t changed. Just the shirt.
Sam Behar is a commercial and sponsorship leader with over 18 years’ experience. He has run his own media agency as well as held senior positions at Marathonbet and BetMGM.
He now advises on smarter, more impactful sponsorships that connect with fans and drive results.
The post Gambling sponsorship in football: what will the industry do next? first appeared on EGR Intel.
With the upcoming Premier League season being the last for front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships, LeoVegas’ former director of UKI and sponsorship, Sam Behar, explains why the industry won’t be deterred by the stricter changes – it’ll simply become more inventive
The post Gambling sponsorship in football: what will the industry do next? first appeared on EGR Intel.