Paddy Power has launched, rescinded, and re-launched a sponsorship shirt design for Huddersfield Town to raise awareness of the problem of gambling advertising in football. Gambling sponsorship has come under fire from both fans and regulators, giving brands the opportunity to take a stand. We explore the insights behind this and why the internet bookmakers marketing campaign has captured the attention of the footballing world.
A marketing campaign by prankster bookmakers Paddy Power has caused a stir in the UK footballing world. The brand first debuted a Huddersfield Town shirt design featuring a large sash emblazoned with Paddy Power, creating an uproar among football fans who said it violated Football Association rules. After a few days, Paddy Power revealed it was a joke and released a shirt devoid of a sponsorship logo. Confronting commercialisation in football marks the launch of the brand’s 'Save Our Shirt' campaign, which aims to make the point that football shirts aren’t the place for advertising. “Shirt sponsorship in football has gone too far,” says Victor Corcoran, Paddy Power’s managing director. “We accept that there is a role for sponsors around football, but the shirt should be sacred." Since their original announcement, they’ve also announced that the football teams, Motherwell, Southend United, and Newport County have also joined the ‘Save our Shirt Campaign’.
A Nielsen survey found that 44% of UK football fans feel the sport is over-commercialised, and a January 2019 study warned of the ‘dire consequences’ of the game’s relationship with gambling, born of the deregulation of gambling in 2005, and the ease of betting online using a phone. Despite this, 50% of Premier League teams still have sponsorship deals with gambling brands, in contrast to Italy where they have banned betting firms marketing from this season onwards, a move that affected over half of Italy’s top tier clubs . With the number of problem gamblers in the UK hitting two million, Paddy Power’s campaign is a way for the brand to show accountability and earn trust from football fans. However, they won’t claim to be doing so, instead playing down any significance of the campaign and decrying it as a move to “stop bastardising football shirts”. In a similar move, AFC Headingley, an amateur team from Yorkshire, signed a sponsorship deal with a charity called Gambling with Lives to highlight the dangers of both gambling and gambling marketing and Luton Town, a football league club claim to have turned down over £500,000 in sponsorship deals from gambling companies.
Louis Tozer is a Behavioural Analyst of Social Sciences at Canvas8. He holds a M.A. in History from UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and is a former Research Assistant at The Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade. He can often be found in the pub with friends or at Roots Hall, the home of Southend United.
