Sunderland are in talks with brands over a new sponsorship deal for next season
Sunderland expect to land a revenue boost from a new front-of-shirt sponsorship deal this summer despite the looming Premier League ban on deals with gambling companies.
The Black Cats are one of a number of top-tier clubs with a betting sponsor on the front of their shirt, signing a one-year deal with W88 following their promotion to the Premier League last summer.
Commercial revenues are growing in importance for Premier League clubs given the new financial rules coming into place this summer, which limit spending on first-team costs to 85% of total revenues. The gambling ban is therefore posing many clubs with a significant challenge to prevent a fall in revenue, but Sunderland’s interim CEO Tom Burwell told The Echo that they expected to secure a improved terms this summer.
Burwell has been working with the club’s interim Chief Revenue Officer Scott McCubbin on a new deal and says the additional time to run a full process should secure an increased dividend.
“So [the responsibility for that deal] that sits for Scott and I, my background is obviously pretty commercial,” Burwell said.
“Mike [Papadimitriou], our chief financial officer, is an overtly commercial CFO. We're recognising that this is a business that needs to grow revenue.
“We're in a really unique and positive position - I would rather be a club in year one of betting being on the front of the shirt and coming off than being a club that's had betting for five to ten years. Because by its nature, if you've had it for five to ten years you've had some growth in what that sponsorship value has been and when it then comes off front of shirt, it's a larger hole. The reality is that when Tommy Watson scored that goal at Wembley, we had eight to ten weeks to build a commercial programme that was fit for purpose and so the deal that we did on our front of shirt was a discount, last-minute deal. The reality is you can't run an entire process, you can't go to market, you can't do all the things that you would do in running an official process. I think there's a strong chance that a large number of the teams this year across their on-kit assets be it training wear, sleeve and front of shirt for next season will go backwards in their commercial programme while we will go forwards.
“I would imagine that we'll be one of the only clubs in that space that will see certainly the level of growth that we're expecting and that in part is because of the unique scenario of how we entered into those talks.”
Burwell also revealed that the club were in talks over a number of new commercial deals which would be two or three times the level of many of their more recent agreements, bolstering their position under the new rules. The club predict that they currently sit midtable in the division for revenue.
Tom Burwell hints at further Sunderland revenue boosts
“We've gone through an exercise over the last 12 months of restructuring our commercial business so that it is fit for purpose to sell to partners who want to engage with the club,” Burwell said.
“We've got a number of live conversations at the moment with what I would say of national businesses that have regional relevance, that are not looking for any of our major kit assets but are coming in at two or three times on what a category sponsor would traditionally look like, so our commercial programme will be night and day compared to where we’ve come from. A lot of the credit needs to go to the connection of the fans that David and the team created over the last two years to be able to go to market and do that. The ability to have a North American tour, where we'll be playing against the three sides that we are in the cities that we are, comes from the work that's taking place over the last two years, as does the ability to be speaking to premium international brands.”
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