Paddy Power betting on whose losing the shirt off their back

Well if the credit crunch hasn’t hit everyone hard enough, now it is the turn of the poor old Premier football teams that are suffering. I know it sounds unlikely when the big teams are currently forking out millions of pounds on purchasing new players during the transfer window. However it is the shirt sponsorship revenue that is currently being hit, with sponsors considering if they should sponsor or in fact if they actually can afford to sponsor in the current desperate economic climate.

Online sports betting site Paddy Power is of course running a book on shirt sponsorship deals, currently they have a market on who is the most likely to take over from AIG as Manchester United’s shirt sponsors should they decide to jump ship – Paddy Power are of course never ones to miss an opportunity to make money on a new betting angle. The current favourite is ‘Sahara’ at 9 /4 and a complete outsider at 500/1 is the Bombay Bicycle Club- I can’t quite fathom why Paddy Power would consider them to be an outsider! Paddy Power have McDonalds with odds of 18 /1 which we here at Betting Hideout feel is the most unlikely, after all Manchester United are never going to give the opposing teams fans ammunition by putting Wayne Rooney in a shirt with McDonalds plastered all over it – you can hear the chants now ‘Who ate all the Maccy D’s!’.

On a more serious note, sponsorship has already fallen from £75,000,000 to £67,000,000 with more companies expected to either reduce their sponsorship budget or not sponsor at all. Although without doubt the revenue brought in on a sponsorship deal is an asset to a club the negative press associated with a failing company can harm the reputation and the kudos of a club, the recent disastrous relationship between West Ham and XL and of course failing bank Northern Rock and their sponsorship of Newcastle another classic example of who not to have as a sponsor.