Manchester United are close to agreeing a deal for a new training kit sponsor after going the entire 2025/26 campaign without having one.
At the new Carrington over the course of this season, Manchester United’s stylish Adidas training kits have been without the usual front of shirt sponsor.
This being the case, since United lost the Tezos deal last summer, which had been very lucrative. The lack of a sponsor makes the training attire look a lot better, but financially, it is bad for the club.
United hit new financial lows in the Deloitte Football Money League back in February, which was a concern. But now a new training sponsor is on the cards.
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United’s financials will be boosted by the Champions League qualification, but milking the sponsorship rights is also a key aspect of the business model.
Now, The Athletic’s Laurie Whitwell has reported that United are in advanced talks to confirm betting brand Betway as the new sponsor.
The deal would be a multi-year agreement to begin next season and could be worth in excess of £18m-a-year for United.
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In order to dig into what this deal means, United in Focus‘ finance expert, Adam Williams, has shed light on what the agreement would mean, including the drop-off from Tezos.
“It’s a great scoop, and the timing is noteworthy. The deal has been briefed a few days after United secured Champions League qualification. That gives you maximum impact as a sponsor, when there is a feel-good factor among fans, more engagements on social media, more positive brand association.
“Given where United are at with financial debt, committed transfer instalments, wages and so on, they needed to get a training kit deal over the line this summer in order to reduce the reliance on external funding from Ratcliffe and their credit facilities.
“That would have been the case with or without Champions League football, and we’re going to see a new sleeve deal and perhaps a training ground naming rights deal announced in the near future too. There’s no doubt, however, that being able to offer Betway more eyeballs on their product on European nights l will have been a boost in the final negotiations.
“Brands increasingly like the training kit sponsorship category because it gives you what marketing heads would call ‘valuable engagement’ – it means your logo is front and centre for the more intimate player interviews behind the scenes and so on. You, as a brand, also get the association with an elite performance culture in training.
“In terms of the value, people will point to the fact that it’s lower than the Tezos deal by £6m annually, but Tezos were effectively paying a crypto premium. There’s more reputational risk for United in a deal like that, so they ask for more money. We’ve seen that dynamic play out over and over in recent years. We don’t know the exact terms of the Betway deal, but this is ‘safe’ money.
“There might also have been an impact on the value of the deal because Premier League sponsorship is a buyer’s market at present because of the ban on front-of-shirt gambling partnerships.
“A lot of that value is migrating to training kit or sleeve sponsorship deals, which speaks to – in my view – the futility and tokenism of the gambling ban. But regardless, when you have so many teams looking to sell their sponsorship rights, those deals will get cheaper for buyers.
“That’s classic supply and demand, and United aren’t immune from that ecosystem, even if they are the biggest and best prospect to sponsor in the division.”
Where would this deal rank in the Premier League?
If the Betway deal is completed, it would see United rank third in the most lucrative training kit sponsorship deals.
This following Manchester City in first with their OKX crypto exchange sponsorship. Then Liverpool, who wear AXA on their training kit, while also seeing the naming rights of their training campus covered in that deal.
United would then be third, before Arsenal, with Emirates being fourth with the bundle deal which covers their Stadium as well, although the training kit portion is only thought to be £15m.
The drop off is quite large compared to the rest of the league.
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