caytoo’s latest annual study of the front of shirt sponsor deals across professional soccer, rugby and cricket teams in England reveals a significant shift away from B2C to B2B companies

Four of the five fastest-growing categories involve Industrial, Specialist Professional Services and Software firms. In contrast, consumer-facing categories account for all five seeing the biggest decline – Alcohol, Non-Profits, Car and Tyre brands and Gambling firms.

However, despite Gambling having one of the biggest declines over the last six years, the category has seen a huge rebound in the last two years. So much so, it is once again the most prevalent category – accounting for 13.5% of (or more than 1 in 8) – front of shirt sponsor deals. For example, over half of this year’s Premier League teams had a front of shirt gambling sponsor.

“Initially, impending legislation and societal opposition to gambling had a noticeable impact on reducing the number of gambling logos on the front of shirts,” said Alex Burmaster, caytoo’s head of research and analysis. “However, various Premier League football teams have backtracked and decided to take final advantage of the category’s willingness to pay top prices before the gambling ban comes into effect before the 2026-27 season. It shows economic realities and fierce competition in sports trump other considerations and clubs will generally keep taking gambling’s money until they’re no longer legally allowed to.”

Following Gambling, the four most prevalent categories are now all B2B – Manufacturing/Engineering, Specialist Professional Services, Construction and Logistics. These four now account for 22% of front of shirt sponsor deals, compared to just 14% six years ago.

This jump by B2B firms has been driven almost entirely by cricket and rugby. Taking the most popular competitions in each sport as an illustration: only around 10% of front of shirt sponsors in football’s Premier League are B2B, compared to about 40% in rugby’s Gallagher Premiership and 50% in cricket’s Vitality Blast.

Broadly speaking, the B2B trend has been driven outside of the top clubs by firms local to the club they sponsor. These firms typically undertake deals to reinforce how they support the local community. Their ability to drive sales is driven much more by relationships and networking than consumer-facing brands so they have less need to drive large-scale brand awareness using, say, Premier League or EFL Championship football teams.

“This reinforces how important it is for clubs to look beyond the usual suspects and target ‘unsexy’ B2B categories that don’t get pitched sponsorship nearly as much as consumer-facing brands but clearly have a lot to gain from sponsorship,” said Burmaster. “This often includes the ability to entertain clients, prospects and suppliers as well as engaging staff through rights such as player access, which the ‘smaller’ clubs can generally provide more access to than the bigger clubs.”

It’s likely B2B firms’ share of front of shirt sponsor deals will increase further in 2026, following the two biggest changes to the front of shirt sponsor landscape in England, which are currently held by consumer-facing brands. Alongside the ban on gambling for football’s Premier League, the new owners of franchises in cricket’s The Hundred will be able to find their own sponsors, rather than it being a single central deal done by the England & Wales Cricket Board – currently KP Snacks.