We’re expecting an announcement soon that will confirm Arsenal dropping Puma as they shirt designers in favor of a £180m deal with Adidas to commence at the kick-off of the 2018/2019 season. Should the deal be completed it will nearly treble the club’s annual income paid for the right to design their team jersey, and take propel them much closer to the kind of income enjoyed by their top of the table rivals. While this is major news and yet further proof that the EPL leads the way when it comes to enhancing subsidiary income streams, it also provides us with the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at the many other sponsorship deals they enjoy.
Arsenal and Emirates have enjoyed over a decade of partnership with the airline proving a key source of funding for the 60 000 capacity, £390m Emirates Stadium. A commercial partnership was crucial in order to get work underway, as the club was not granted any public sector funding and despite their best efforts only earned around £50m from careful player sales (an impressive sum for the times but only an eighth of the total cost, not including a new training ground).
Once the deal was finally agreed in late 2004, the sponsorship is believed to have been in the region of £100m spread over a fifteen-year term. Emirates received stadium naming rights (hence The Emirates Stadium) as well as shirt sponsorship. As football became ever richer both parties acted quickly to extend this arrangement further, with a 2012 deal extending shirt sponsorship for another five years (now due to expire in 2024) and stadium rights until 2027. The precise figures and payment structure was not fully made public but is believed to amount to in the region of £150m in total. At the time of writing, Arsenal has yet to announce whether or not they will make use of the new rules allowing small additional sponsorship panels on the sleeves of the shirts.
The precise figures and payment structure was not fully made public but is believed to amount to in the region of £150m in total. At the time of writing, Arsenal has yet to announce whether or not they will make use of the new rules allowing small additional sponsorship panels on the sleeves of the shirts.
The Big Four Official Partners
As with most EPL teams, Arsenal has a number of other partnerships which vary considerably in value. The four main sponsors reflect the wide range of industries that nowadays seek to be associated with the leading clubs. They have deals with automotive firm Coopertires Europe, sports drink Gatorade, Vitality healthy insurance and financial website Markets.com. Perhaps it is not surprising for a major London based club to represent a number of high profile brands, but these partners are just the tip of the iceberg.
Many Varied Regional Partners
Just to highlight the true globalization of Premier League football, Arsenal have agreed to a host of deals for local markets across the world as well as a number of UK specific companies. These range from broadcasters BT Sport through to banking, breweries, and even Universal Studios. Another interesting partnership and one that also reflects a rapidly growing association with gambling. Even though we personally prefer to play the best casino games online at Euro Palace casino, Arsenal put their name to Betfair who as industry observers will be all aware are one of the experts providing live in-play wagering services.
The Future For Arsenal’s Sponsorship Deals?
Clubs can almost entirely make their own sponsorship agreements (this was one of the key principles when the EPL was launched 25 years ago) although recently the Football Association have declared that they will no longer renew their partnerships with gambling companies. There’s absolutely zero chance of that happening in the domestic leagues, with almost every club even in the Championship and lower divisions now having an official betting partner. Given Arsenal’s very close relationship with Emirates (and the company’s tremendous spending power), we’d expect the current deal to be extended again in coming years, most likely for around double the current deal.