February 2 – Burnley are the latest Premier League club to face problems with a betting partner. Shirt sponsor LoveBet have reportedly hit financial difficulty mirroring issues SportPesa ran into, forcing it to pull out of Everton’s sponsorship before the start of the season.
Burnley signed a three-year deal with LoveBet for an estimated £7.5 million a year, starting this season. However the impact of Covid in Asia has reportedly forced the company to look for ways of passing on its contract.
Everton had their five-year contract terminated with SportPesa three years early and pre-covid in February last year.
While the club went to great lengths to spin the termination of their betting sponsor as them taking the moral high ground on betting promotion, the reality is that SportPesa made the decision to terminate the sponsorship following a collapse in their domestic business in Kenya where the government changed taxation rules on betting to cover all money staked, rather than just taxing profit.
Everton replaced SportPesa at short notice trumpeting a £9 million+ record sponsorship with online car sales site Cazoo. Sources suggest that the annual spend by Cazoo is considerably less and that the loss of SportPesa was significant.
However, clubs like Everton, and potentially Burnley, who have been forced to transition away from a reliance on betting shirt sponsorship could actually find themselves ahead of the game.
The loss of big spending betting sponsorship looks set to become a major issue for the Premier League and Championship with the UK’s 2005 Gambling Act review ongoing. Last week Prime Minister Boris Johnson was reported as being likely to support a ban on gambling industry shirt sponsorship.
This would immediately impact eight Premier League clubs. Betting sponsorship revenue to Premier League and Championship clubs is estimated at £110 million annually.
Discussion over the new gambling laws is not confined to shirt sponsorship and promotion but includes increased controls over the size of stakes punters can place as well visible notification by betting firms on accounts of how much individual bettors are spending and have lost.
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