Chelsea's £60m Shirt Sponsor Hunt: Champions Wait for Perfect Deal

Chelsea do not have a shirt sponsor for this season - yet (Image: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

For the third season in succession, Chelsea will start a Premier League campaign without a main shirt sponsor. The Blues, who were crowned world champions during the summer after reigning supreme at the FIFA Club World Cup in the United States, have not had a permanent long-term front-of-shirt partner since their agreement with mobile network Three ended following the 2022/23 Premier League season.

The club did have a partnership with Infinite Athlete, while the final games of last season saw them reach a multi-million agreement with Emirati property development company DAMAC for a short window . Chelsea’s ownership group led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital have been keen not to undersell themselves when it comes to one of the most valuable pieces of sponsorship inventory that they have.

The leverage that they had was weakened by the lack of competitive success and poor performances in the Premier League which resulted in no Champions League football or valuable exposure for commercial partners.

All of this was coinciding with the club having to battle to remain compliant with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations (PSR). But through some savvy player trading and selling tangible assets to themselves, such as hotels at Stamford Bridge and Chelsea Women for nearly £200 million , their PSR concerns have melted away.

A return to Champions League football for this coming season will, even conservatively, swell the Chelsea coffers by more than £70m for a mediocre campaign when taking into account the additional matchday revenue that will be factored into the equation.

Then there is the win at the Club World Cup, something that boosted their finances by £85m. That has also given them more leverage when it comes to getting the price that they want for the shirt sponsorship now, which is understood to be around £60m per year, which would put them higher than Liverpool’s with Standard Chartered and the same as Manchester United’s with Qualcomm, who promote their Snapdragon brand through the partnership. It would be some £8m shy of Manchester City and Etihad Airways. A £60m deal over five years would be £300m in total.

But no deal has manifested as yet. However, with the removal of concerns around PSR, the club will feel that they will be better off, with Champions League football to come this season, to get what they want a little further down the line even if that means employing a similar tactic as was used to bring in DAMAC on a short-term basis.

Tying into a long-term deal now for less than they feel the sponsorship is worth could see them leave money on the table over a longer period of time.

With time on their side now and the club able to use the triumph in the Club World Cup given their title of world champions for the next four years, they will feel they are a stronger proposition for would-be commercial partners, especially in North America. there is little rush to strike a deal just to tie in with the start of the season if it means they can eke out more money.

But the benchmark has been set for how much these partnerships are valued at and asking for more than the Premier League champions, with a bigger global following, and the same as United, who don’t have the competitive success in recent years but retain their place as one of the most iconic sporting teams in the world, may be a hard sell. The strength of the commercial department’s negotiating skills will play a huge part.