Football sponsorships selling like hotcakes as new seasons loom

The English Football Association may not want any betting sponsorship money but the rest of the professional football world appears only too happy to pick up the slack.

We begin with English Premier League mainstays Manchester City, who have just come to terms with UK-licensed K8.com on a new official Asian Betting Partnership. The multi-year deal, which gets underway with the start of the 2017-18 EPL season, adds to the K8 Group’s EPL portfolio, which includes a shirt deal with West Bromwich Albion.

Sticking with the EPL, AFC Bournemouth have inked a two-year shirt deal with Asian-facing operator M88, whose parent company Mansion was Bournemouth’s previous shirt sponsor. Convenient, that. Bournemouth is coming off its best-ever season in the EPL, while M88 has now gone nearly two years without having its player agents busted by Vietnamese authorities. Synergy!

Downgrading to UK football’s second tier, mobile casino operator LeoVegas has inked a two-year shirt deal with Championship side Brentford FC. LeoVegas replaces 888 Holdings’ sportsbook brand 888 Sport as the Bees’ shirt sponsor for their final two seasons at their longtime but decrepit home field of Griffin Park before the team shifts to Brentford Community Stadium in 2019.