European football sponsorship now big business

Our readers will have already noted the steady stream of news items reporting new football sponsorships by gambling companies throughout Europe, and the trend has been backed by hard numbers from research outfit Repucom, which claims that football shirt sponsorship in the region soared in 2015-2016 by 180 percent compared to the preceding year.

The Repucom survey covered activity in the German Bundesliga, Spain’s Primera Division, the Italian Serie A and Netherlands’ Eredivisie leagues, and the English Premier League, showing that gambling companies spent Euro 42 million on such investments, a remarkable annual increase from the preceding year’s Euro 15 million.

Total football sponsorships were recorded as Euro 830 million in 2015-16 (a 13 percent y-o-y increase), with the biggest sponsors hailing from the banking, travel, insurance, telecommunications and automotive industries.

The internationally popular English Premier League sides accounted for 40 percent of the sponsorship total – 5 percent more than in 2014-15.