Newcastle United are heading into the final 12 months of two major sponsorship deals with the intention of maximising any future commercial tie-ups.
The next home, away and third strips – set for a release in the next eight weeks – will be the last of the deals with Puma and Fun88.
United’s Puma deal – which has been a decade-long relationship between the German sportswear company and the club – expires in 2020 along with their shirt sponsor Fun88, who have been on board since 2017.
It represents a big opportunity for Newcastle to extract maximum value which, in turn, should boost the spending power of whoever is in charge at the club at the start of the 2020/21 campaign.
Neither deal has gone to tender yet – it is too early for that – but there is understood to be interest from several sportswear brands in the Newcastle tie-up. The Puma deal is a “good one” according to club sources and as well as being financially sound for the club, it has also enabled them to share knowledge with other Puma-branded clubs, including Borussia Dortmund.
However a slew of new brands have entered the market since Newcastle signed their last deal in 2016, with American company New Balance and Under Armour vying for the biggest deals. Nike are also keen to work on more tie-ins and look set to snap up the Liverpool deal.
United negotiated a deal with Chinese gambling firm Fun88 which has been estimated to be worth around £6.5million . There were clauses in that deal related to performance but it was done in the aftermath of promotion from the Championship; if United manage to establish themselves in the top-flight they will be confident of topping that amount once more.
Another area Newcastle will be looking to exploit is the possibility of a sleeve sponsor. After running with MRF Tyres in the 2017/18 season, they left the space blank last term after failing to land a big enough offer .
At October’s Fans Forum they said “prepared to not have a sleeve sponsor partner this season, rather than take a very low offer and compromise the value of future potential partnerships.” The club had explored the potential of running with charities on the sleeve on a match-by-match basis but nothing materialised.
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