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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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If we go into next season or we go into two seasons time and every sleeve in the premier league or 17 of 20 sleeves in the premier league has a betting brand on it. And 15 of the 20 stadiums are named after betting operators. That public friction in that lobbying is going to return. There needs to be a level of a, yeah, just a level of what's the word I'm looking for. Just care with how, you know, how much. The industry can't take too much of an aggressive approach to these sponsorships or that lobbying, and that friction will return for sure. In the never-ending deal-making circus of English football, a reported record-breaking £20 million training kit sponsorship of Manchester United has caught media scrutiny. Supergroup's Bedway brand has broken the bank to become a partner of Manchester United for the 26-27 season as the Premier League imposes its self-enforced ban on front of shared gambling sponsorships. So this sponsorship draws attention to how the relationship between gambling operators and football clubs is being reordered at a time when UK politics wants betting out of the terraces and out of the view of fans. This we will discuss today on iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Welcome everyone, I'm Fernando Nott, Media Manager for SBC and your host for today, joined um by Editor for iGamingExpert, Joe Streeter. Joe, how are you today? Yeah, I'm okay, Fernando. I'm doing pretty good. m Forgive the small talk, but I am hot in the UK this week. It has been roasting. Yeah, I'm sure Ted's feeling the same. He's got his top button done up, so invite him to undo it. yeah, it's too hot for top buttons, Ted. What are we doing? It's way too hot for top buttons. Yeah, seems like anything English people are talking right now is that hot. So it's very hot in the UK. So um Ted Orme Clay, editor for SBC News, can you confirm on that? Yeah, I mean, we're very boring people, aren't we? don't really, we just don't have anything else to talk about, I think. And the Premier League is over. Too hot, too cold, raining. Yeah, as soon as the football is done, everyone just... There's two default settings and that's the weather and football and we've lost one of those. yeah, it's going to be hot weather for the next few months. So that's going to give us plenty to talk about, think. Yeah, football is over, but of course it has given us a lot to talk about because this deal between Bedway and Manchester United has really surprised us. At least it has surprised me, of course, given that we have a Manchester United fan here with us, Joe. give us the lowdown on this reported sponsorship for United. Yeah, it's an interesting deal. for the training assets, the training kit assets. It's around 20 million is being reported by the Daily Mail as a value of the deal, which interestingly is the same fee that Manchester United paid to sack Ruben Amorim. So yeah, an interesting takeaway. But it's... yet the training assets, it comes in this new era where front of shirt sponsorship is not allowed for betting operators. And 20 million is on value as well with what we've previously seen for training kit sponsorships of Manchester United and of other big clubs. So it speaks to, know, betting's entry into a more aggressive way into alternative sponsorship avenues in the absence of the front of shirt sponsorships. not hyping up the market, which to me is very interesting. I think if I could pick up on a couple of things that you said in the intro, Fer, think media scrutiny. uh I would say there's not been loads of media scrutiny. The media have reported it in quite a hyperbolic way, but I don't think they've been necessarily that critical of it. There's been a little bit of reaction as there inevitably is on social media over the deal from fans and such. But yeah, and the other one, you know, the, the feasibility of betting sponsors, you know, it moves from, from kind of fans in the, in the stadium away onto social media and things. There will still be a presence in, in stadiums on the LED boards. And yeah, that's the main presence in stadiums on the LED boards, but they will still have a presence in stadiums. think that's important to note. just because after the Italian front of shirt sponsor band, they did continue to appear um with entertainment brands on the LED boards and they appeared in quite a substantial number as well in this kind of brought into question the actual impact of the band. that, know, something to watch for in the England football's top flight. The reporting around this one, obviously like Joe said, just reports the moment but it does seem like it's in the bag. This 20 million payment for it is reminding me a lot of the Aston Villa-Botano deal from about, was that 2024 I think? Which I also believe was worth 20 million and I think was widely reported at the time as being the most lucrative deal in Aston Villa's history. yeah, like Joe said, it's not uncommon at all to see betting deals. break financial records for clubs in this country. think that's a really good point though, Ted, to be honest, because know, we, know, betting is such a prevalent sponsor in football and in the premier league that removing betting from the front of shirt, it really does change the whole landscape for, for sports sponsorship. But I think, you know, listening to panels and listening to webinars and speaking to various people, there was perhaps a prediction or a possibility that by removing betting from the front of shirt, you would kind of inflate the value of other sponsorship assets as a result, you because the sleeve sponsor or the training kit sponsor is now the sole avenue for betting engagement. where they can get sponsorship in the absence of the front of shirt. And there was this kind of prediction, this kind of, you know, wait and see, hashtag wait and see. as to whether um it would inflate the value of the sponsorships. But if we're looking at the Man United deal with um Betway, it doesn't appear to have done that really. uh know, Ted mentioned the 20 mil for Betano and Villa, you know, that's around a similar value. And that's Houston Villa who, although European champions aren't as big, a club that's sponsored, sponsorship asset isn't going to hold as much value as the Manchester United one does. Manchester United's previous sponsorship on their training kit was a blockchain company, a tech blockchain company that was also around a similar value. The Tottenham MGM one about 10 mil uh and Liverpool's with Axis I think that included training ground naming rights. I don't know how valuable that is really but um Also largely just a training kit sponsor. That was around 25 mil. So it doesn't appear when you kind of sift through the hyperbole of the story when you're reading it in the tabloids and it's a record breaking lucrative deal. It doesn't appear that the market value of this deal has been inflated too much. kind of appears on track with what they should be paying. Let's discuss tabloids of course, that has been a big issue for this deal or they've made a very big deal about the deal, um if I may. Of course, the Daily Mail, one of them, using a particular tone of narrative. So what's the perception around this deal, both on the tabloids and also in terms of United and Bedway? they are not breaking any rules, they? So what are the main issues maybe with the sponsorship and what's the general perception around it? In terms of any main issues, guess, like you said, Fernando, in like a legal sense, regulatory sense, the rules of the Premier League, relating to the rules of the Premier League and so on, there are really no issues. Like we said, they're not breaking any rules here. From the next season, 2026, 2027 onwards, Premier League clubs will not be allowed to have front of shirt sponsors in betting, as Job has said. But yeah, they're allowed sleeves, they're allowed LED... advertising around the primitives, they're allowed training kits as this deal is. You can still have stadium naming rights deals and so on. So yeah, this is just a very clear-cut example of Man United and Betway working with the rules that they have. You know, it's kind of interesting as well as, you know, what Joe was talking about with the changing dynamics of things. In some ways, yes, obviously dynamics have clearly changed because they're no longer allowed to have front of shirt sponsorship. But we were talking a lot in the build up to this ban of, well, who's going to fill the gap? Are clubs just going to look for, yeah, like crypto or blockchain companies to take the place, even for trading platforms like E-Toro, Robinhood, Trading212, those kind of platforms to be front of shirt instead. But it's pretty obvious that betting companies are still, at least according to these reports, it seems quite obvious that betting companies are still willing to pay pretty large sums of money to get any sort of sponsorship with a football club, whether that's training kit or on the sleeve or whatever. So maybe in that sense, the dynamic hasn't really changed. The dynamic of clubs and companies still wanting to find ways to work with each other, companies for that marketing space and clubs because it's a reliable source of income. I guess so maybe what you could say is a continuing issue with it is that There are still a large segment of the British public who aren't happy with gambling advertising and sponsorship, especially in football. The Football Supporters Association, I think, over the past few years has been quite vocal about it. If you go onto X or some other social media platforms, often if you look at the comments around when a club announces a deal with a betting company, you'll get a lot of people complaining about it and just saying, oh great, yeah, another betting partner, that kind of sentiment. So, yeah, in terms of the issues around it, it's just the wider topic of the public and political scrutiny around gambling advertising, think. uh Joe, I noticed you were trying jump in there. Did you have a different opinion? No, no, no, I kind of agree, but, you know, I wanted to kind of get onto your first point. Also, Ted, those Man United fans that are... You know, we're not happy with the deal. wonder if you said, um, we'll, we'll get rid of Betway from the training kit, but it means we're not going to be able to afford to pay Ruben Amorim off. So we're going to have to bring him back next season. I wonder if they'd still be unhappy. But yeah, you know, obviously it doesn't break any rules. This deal doesn't break any rules at all. It's perfectly legitimate and, uh, know, credit to the Daily Mail as well. The first to report it. Um, it's perfectly legitimate, but the, the ban on the front of shirts is voluntary. The Premier League clubs, uh they did this themselves. But what I would urge is I would urge caution with deals like this. If we go into next season or we go into two seasons time and every sleeve in the Premier League or 17 of 20 sleeves in the Premier League has a betting brand on it and 15 of the 20 stadiums are named after betting operators. That public friction in that lobbying is going to return. There needs to be a level of, yeah, just a level of uh what's the word I'm looking for? Just care with how much these sponsorships, the industry can't take too much of an aggressive approach to these sponsorships or that lobbying and that friction will return for sure. Yeah. mean, know, to just to jump off what you said there again, Joe, you know, we say, so it doesn't return, it's never left. You know what mean? When the Gambling Act Review White Paper got published way back in April 2023, a lot of the people who'd been making the case for reform of UK gambling laws, the big advocates for that, were quite disappointed at the time with what they saw as a lack of action around sponsorships. The review brought in a code of conduct on sponsorships. was published after the Premier League had already done that voluntary decision as you said Joe, the clubs voted to do this themselves and say it's time for us to stop doing front of shirt deals with betting companies. But yeah, lot of advocates for gambling reform weren't satisfied with the review, they weren't satisfied with the conclusions that came to around advertising and marketing and they've still been making the case in the years since. We saw some Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords and MPs in the Commons I think. attempt to use the government's football governance bill as a vehicle to bring in gambling advertising clamped down again. Obviously that was rejected by the government because they said the governance bill wasn't anything to do with that. It's to do with creating this football regulator that's set up and everything. But yeah, that scrutiny has not gone anywhere. But I do think you are right in the sense that if everyone just goes, right, we can't have front of shirt anymore, so we'll all just have a sleeve deal. We'll all just have... LED adverts all around a stadium with all name-masked stadiums after bookmakers. It's just setting up another massive target, isn't it? And it looks like we've run a bit over, a little bit of Fergie time here on iGamingDaily, but we're going to do a very quick ad break right now, or a cooling break like nowadays football does. And we will continue discussing the relationship between gambling and English football right after this very quick ad break. Learn how OptiMove's positionless marketing is changing how iGaming teams operate. Discover how operators are using OptiMove's positionless marketing platform to launch personalized CRM campaigns, dynamically change casino lobbies and bet slips, and create engaging gamified experiences. Learn more at OptiMove.com. And we're back with more iGaming Daily to continue discussing Man United with no other than Joe Streeter, Man United's number one fan. But let's forget about all the... the noise that we were discussing in the first half, all the repercussions that this deal, this reported deal has brought to the public opinion. Joe, why do you think Bedway has taken a risk, the risk of a 20 million pound sponsorship with Man United, allegedly, of course? If there is no risk in this deal, I think this is a brilliant deal, if I'm honest. forgive me, as you mentioned, I might come in with a bit of bias, but I think even looking at any of the big clubs, I think in the modern world, how media is consumed for a global brand. think I was reading the SBC news piece actually about comparing it to the front of shirt sponsor. And I think the front of shirt sponsor is around three times the value of the... of the training kit sponsor. To me, that makes the training kit value so valuable, such good value, think is such a good bang for the buck because we see clips shared on social media all the time. see YouTube content constantly evolving. We see content on various platforms. We see the manager press conference in the training kit quite often. The exposure from this deal is, I think it's so good. And I think in the modern way, the modern world, the way that kind of content and sports content is consumed, there's so much more to it, especially for such a big club than just ah the game on the pitch. I think this is a really good deal. Yeah. I think it's a brilliant deal for sure. You're sounding a bit like Donald Trump. This might be the biggest deal, the best deal ever. But yeah, I do agree with you though. I think it's a great deal. It gets a lot of exposure for any brand that gets on the Man United training kit. But what about the smaller clubs like um smaller, course, quote unquote, Like in the pre-mint league and below some clubs have, of course, less commercial appeal, let's say, so they don't have the profile of Man United. What are they doing there? First, I think Joe's haircut kind of suits the Donald Trump impression. Same colour, think they're using the same dye. In the right lighting. Sorry Joe. What are the smaller clubs doing? Well, they'll probably be looking to do, I think a lot of them will probably look to do similar things to this, like we talked about earlier, with the dynamics of these deals changing. Front of shirt deals have been very valuable to a lot of clubs over time. um At some point I think more than a third, I may even be underestimating that if Premier League clubs had a front of shirt betting sponsor. So they're just going to be looking at who they can work with with a similar deal to this, whether it's on training kit or on a sleeve or something. But probably with smaller companies that will be looking for that exposure in the Premier League. won't quite have the budget that a company like Betway does. know, Betway and its parent company Super Group is one of the biggest sports books globally. um You know, it really works with them to work with a club like Man United, think, because they are... Betway are targeting a lot of uh growth in Africa, among other places. Manchester United is a club that's going to have a big following, you know, that does have a big following globally. I think Manchester United is probably one of like the it's going to be one of the top five most followed clubs in the world, isn't it? So for Betway, with the budget they have and for the markets they're looking at, that lines up perfectly. Smaller clubs are going to look at doing something similar maybe, but with partners that are more accommodating to a smaller budget or are looking at different markets and things like that, might not want to pay for the big global exposure that a club like Manchester United brings. And Joe, do you think that betting sponsorship could be the first point of call for the new football regulator. I'm going to break the rules for I'm going to respond to what Ted said really quickly because I think it's about the asset. Yeah, as Man United breaking the rules. we use it. I think Man United could put out a video of Matthias Cunha doing kick ups on social media and it's going to get loads of views. Michael Carrick can come out and talk about the weather and it's going to be brilliant. But football Football clubs have these assets where, you know, there's a story to be told at every football club. Uh, you know, follow soft city quite a lot and they do a fantastic job of telling the story of each, of each week, each training week, each, everything, everything that's going on at the club on their YouTube channel via kind of using the assets that they have. I think, you know, if you're a lesser premier league club, your, your value on socials and things like that becomes increased. the more creative you get with those assets you've got, if that makes sense. Obviously the Wrexham example is a brilliant example. Nobody would care about Wrexham if we didn't all know about this story because of the way they tell it. Subsequently, their sponsorship value shoots up whatever that's on, whether it's in the stadium, whether it's on the training ground, because people are viewing them constantly, because of the creative way they use the assets. So I think lower Premier League teams or lesser known Premier League teams have to... have to do that in uh a creative way. As for the football regulator, Fer, you asked me about the football regulator. I think the football regulator is going to be so busy dealing with issues that have nothing to do with the Premier League um that I don't think this is going to be the port of call. Obviously we've seen the debacle at Sheffield Wednesday last season. Thankfully they're in a not a better place in terms of their league. They're in league one next season, but ah They're in a better place in terms of stability, no points deduction. Seems like they're in a better spot now. We've seen it with various clubs over the years where just uh poor ownership has led to their downfall and points deductions and various financial instability. If the football regulator isn't coming in and focusing on football ownership um at the start of the campaign. Um, then yeah, I think they've done something wrong and also a shout out to, uh, Rochdale in York as well, because the football regulator should come in and probably put, make it easier to get out the national league and into the EFL, uh, support, I gave him daily support for the free up campaign. If, if I can speak on behalf of the podcast or just maybe speaking on behalf of myself, but yeah, that, I don't think the football regulator will be too focused on this. think. the industry has done the work it's done, the Premier League has done the work it's done to voluntarily take front of shirt sponsorships away. And I think that's kind of eased this issue for a bit. All right. All right. And now, of course, you will be able to follow these developments on all SVC media websites. So make sure you are subscribed to all SVC media newsletters and also on iGamingDaily. So follow iGamingDaily on socials and your preferred podcasting platform. But... um What do you guys think of the self-imposed ban of starting on the next season, 26, 27 season? Does this change anything? Can football ever end its relationship with gambling? What do you guys think? Very briefly, because we're already past our bedtime, of course. Go on, I'll go first here. Can football ever end its relationship with gambling? don't think so and I don't think it needs to, right? The two are in natural fit. Yeah, it's a good fit. think there needs to be balance and I need then there needs to be kind of, it needs to be done in a safe way, but I don't think football will ever, the relationship between football and gambling is such a culturally intertwined one that I don't think it needs to end and I think it ever will end. Yeah. I mean, it remains to be seen what impact it will have, but I think what a potentially positive outcome of the Front of Shirt ban will be that Yeah, it's going to reduce that and meet that, you know, huge immediate visibility of betting clubs that people are clearly getting frustrated with whilst still allowing the industry and the sport to work together and, yeah, benefit from each other and what they want. So, yeah, hopefully it'll be positive. But as I said earlier, that public and political pressure is still going to be there. One very last note just to add, we should, that front of shirt band should come alongside the campaign for uh unlicensed ban um on Premier League sports as well. That absolutely should happen. That's essential. Yeah, the one that Entain is heading up. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely a few things to consider there for English football ahead of next season. Of course, right now we're all focused on the World Cup, which is in less than two weeks. So very excited about that as well. But we'll have to hashtag wait and see what happens with the Premier League. its relationship with the gambling and sponsorships of course a very different Premier League is coming ahead next season but we will continue to cover this on all the SBC media websites and of course on iGamingDaily as well thank you very much Joe Tair for this great episode even though Joe decided to do whatever he wanted to do and ignore my request, but we value your contributions either way. Thank you very much Ney Macdonald for producing this episode. I'm Fernando Nott and to our listeners out there, we'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.