Despite a looming ban hanging over the sector, Nottingham Forest has become the latest Premier League side to ink a partnership with the gambling industry.
The club has unveiled Bally’s as its new front of shirt partner, meaning the US-based company’s logo will appear on Forest’s first team shirts throughout the 2025/26 season, as well as across the side’s City Ground home.
The deal follows the likes of West Ham, who last month announced BoyleSports as its new front of shirt partner, as part of a £100m investment into the UK by the brand.
Although the front of shirt partnership will last only one year, the new relationship demonstrates the value of gaining visibility through the Premier League for brand recognition in the UK and around the world.
“We’re excited to bring our global brand to the Premier League stage, introduce new audiences to the club, and collaborate on initiatives that make a meaningful impact both locally and internationally,” said Robeson Reeves, Chief Executive of Bally’s Corporation, on the sponsorship deal.
Bally’s holds a UK Gambling Commission licence and recently acquired Aspers Casino in Newcastle. It also operates the brands Virgin Games, Jackpotjoy and Double Bubble Bingo in the UK following the $2.7bn acquisition of Gamesys Group in October 2021.
Elsewhere, it operates 19 casinos across 11 states in the US – a key market for the Premier League – as well as Bally Bet, its online sports betting and casino gaming platform.
A new era for sports sponsorships
As mentioned, the Premier League agreed to a ban on front-of-shirt sponsorships from the end of the upcoming season following concerns over the league’s ties to the betting industry.
However, no such rules are in place for betting sponsorship elsewhere on a team’s kit or ground, meaning space such as sleeves and training kits are likely to become the new focus for the industry.
Last week, newly-promoted Leeds United announced Parimatch as its sleeve sponsor for the upcoming season.
Discussing the significance of the deal for the future of sponsorships on the latest episode of iGaming Daily, Christian Lee, Business Journalist for iGaming Expert, said: “This is a sign of how gambling sponsorships will change in football because gambling is so entrenched in football. Even when the front of shirt sponsorship ban comes into place, gambling brands will just find another way to be involved through deals such as sleeve sponsorships or training kit sponsorships.
“And when you look at the training kit sponsorships, they could even be more valuable than front of shirt [deals] given how much social media content teams put out through the week when players train and do [media].”
The podcast also considered the impact of the ban on reducing the visibility of gambling sponsorships, as it is intended to do.
Elsewhere in Europe, data reported by The Guardian found that two-thirds of teams across 31 European top divisions. As a result, it is likely that teams visiting Premier League teams in European competitions will carry gambling companies as their front-of-shirt sponsors.
Last year, UEFA, European football’s governing body, also unveiled bet365 and Betano as official betting partners of the Champions League and Europa and Conference Leagues respectively.
“I think that [the ban] lacks teeth,” said Kieran O’Connor, Business Journalist for Insider Sport. “In countries with bans, when the big teams compete in the larger stage like the UEFA Champions League, you have teams with betting sponsorship coming over to your country. So it definitely creates an issue for regulators that are trying to keep the betting brands off screen.”
September 15 will see SBC organise a groundbreaking charity football event in Lisbon. Make sure you get the chance to see some of the most legendary names in football by securing your ticket today at https://www.legendscharitygame.com/
