Sports business reporter Lukasz Baczek has come from nowhere this morning with an update on Chelsea’s sponsor situation.
He claims that BingX, a Crypto-currency exchange, is going to become the club’s new training kit sponsor, paying £12m a year to replace Trivago, who end their partnership with Chelsea after 3 years. The travel agent had apparently been paying £10m a year, so there’s been a fractional rise on that front.
The sleeve sponsor for the training kit will remain sports data company Infinite Athlete, with this deal worth £3m a year. As it stands, they also look likely to remain the front of shirt sponsor for the main kit, as no major deal to replace 3 has yet been found. They paid something in the region of £40m for last year, and will presumably pay something similar this year.
🚨BingX is officially the club’s training wear sponsor in a two-year deal worth £12m per season
🚨The Trivago brand has permanently ended its partnership with Chelsea after 3 years, during which it was paying £10m a year
🚨Just like last season, the Infinite Athlete logo will… pic.twitter.com/nhD1QjK77G— Łukasz Bączek (@Lu_Class_) July 1, 2024
An increasing embarrassment
Infinite Athlete was very much a last minute stop gap solution last season, brought in at what appeared to be a slashed rate just to get something on the front of our shirts and stop us looking like a Sunday League team for any longer.
The fact they’re “most likely” going to continue doesn’t mean that they’ve decided to start paying market rate, it means that Chelsea have once again failed to find someone willing to pay for a serious, long term deal.
Given the new ownership overhauled the commercial side of the club entirely since taking over, the failure to second a lucrative multi year deal with a massive global brand can only be considered a failure, and given the need to bring in money with no Champions League football to increase revenue, it’s an issue that could start affecting the team on the pitch.
Are we really going to end up selling players because we can’t persuade Samsung or Chevrolet to stump up £50m a year?
