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- In England, an influential political committee has recommended that shirt sponsorship by betting firms be banned by 2023
- I spoke on the excellent Football Insomniac Podcast about a host of issues, including a potential betting sponsorship ban in football
- The sponsorship by betting companies on shirts currently brings in an estimated £70 million in revenue
It looks like change could finally be coming to football, under proposals to ban a variety of forms of advertising for gambling. In particular, it would appear UK authorities plan to outright ban shirt sponsorship.
In the context of this development, it was a great pleasure to be invited to contribute to the Football Insomniac Podcast, hosted by Colin Watt, who is a pivotal player in the extremely influential (and respected) podcast production company, A State Of Mind.
So how prevalent is gambling sponsorship in the game of football?
Before even getting into this, it is important to understand much money the gambling industry generates. The global worldwide market is estimated to be worth $85 billion. Not only this, countries like the US are finally legalising sports betting, after being steadfast opponents for decades. To give an indication of how lucrative the US market could be, the market pulled in $900 million in 2019, yet only half of the 50 states in the country had legalised it. However, research has also found that just 5% of bets placed on the biggest sporting event in the USA’s calendar, The Super Bowl, were placed legally in 2019.
Simply put, the market could be huge. For more on the US market opening up, read this piece I wrote.
Looking closer to home (and Europe) and the advertising issue in particular, it is hard to believe otherwise that betting is plastered all over football. In the case of the Premier League, eight of the twenty teams have a gambling sponsor as their main sponsor on their jerseys. Even worse, two-thirds of Championship teams have such sponsorship adorning their kits. Meanwhile, the UK has also instituted a watershed of 9pm until TV adverts relating to gambling can be shown during football games.
The issue of drowning in gambling advertising in the sport has been rumbling on for a number of years, however, this time, especially in the UK, it appears change is coming.
A House of Lords Select Committee on gambling has laid out a recommendation that such shirt sponsorship is banned by 2023, but that all advertising related to betting is removed completely from sporting venues. This recommendation forms a wider legislative push at the governmental level to reexamine the 2005 Gambling Act and update it to factor in mobile betting.
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Yet the issue goes beyond mere jerseys. As I mentioned to Colin, these sponsorships now live digitally, on wildly popular video games like FIFA and are consumed by very young people. We also move into issues around Lootboxes (as mentioned by one commentator during the podcast) also. Even in more lo-fi products like football stickers, such sponsorship is also visible.
In much the same way that cigarette sponsorship was phased out of Formula One, I think a similar situation may happen in the case of football. Clearly in the UK, the authorities are making moves that will affect betting advertisers moving forward.
The question becomes, can the clubs afford it? And can the sponsors who replace these betting companies, stump up the same level of cash? Likely not. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.
