Sponsoring a Premier League club shirt - a cursed marketing activity

An interesting, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, piece on the BBC website today questioning pointing out just how many of the main shirt sponsors of Premier League clubs have recently suffered from financial difficulties…

Here is the article.

The context of the article is to examine whether shirt sponsorship can claim to have joined the list of unorthodox predictors which might signal that a company is in financial trouble.

Presumably Man Utd (AIG), Newcastle (Northern Rock) and West Ham (XL) will be looking for new shirt sponsors once their current contracts run out

I did a bit of research into the current shirt sponsors (list below) as part of our work for Chelsea FC on a new business studies tour at Stamford Bridge. An interesting list:

Manchester United: AIG (Insurance) £14.125m
Chelsea: Samsung (Electronics) £10m
Liverpool: Carlsberg (Brewing) £7m
Newcastle United: Northern Rock (Finance) £5m
Arsenal: Emirates (Airline) £5m
Tottenham Hotspur: Mansion.com (Casino and Poker) £5m
Aston Villa: Acorns (Children’s Hospice) Free
Everton: Chang (Brewing) £2.6m
Manchester City: Thomas Cook £1m
Hull City: Karoo (Internet Service Provider) £800,000
Blackburn Rovers: Crown Paints £1.5m
West Ham United: XL (Holidays) £1m
Wigan Athletic: JJB (Retailer) £1m
Portsmouth: OKI (Printers) £800,000
West Bromwich Albion: None
Sunderland: Boylesports (Irish bookmaker) £2.5m
Middlesbrough: Garmin (SatNav) £1m
Fulham: LG (Electronics) £3m
Stoke City: Britannia (Building Society) £1m
Bolton Wanderers: Reebok (Sportswear manufacturer) £1.2m

Then a thought suddenly struck, which has left me slightly worried. This hasn’t hit the headlines (yet), but tutor2u is the proud shirt sponsor of Collingham JFC Under 8’s this season.