Exeter City secure new sponsors

Whether you like it or you don't, sponsorship money is vital to the survival of professional football teams both large and small. The money generated by fans going through turnstiles and buying official shirts is now a mostly-insignificant aspect of a club's annual income. Television money, commercial partnerships, and sponsorships have a far bigger role to play - and down in League Two, where Exeter City are, having a sponsor can be the difference between making ends meet and failing to do so.

Exeter hasn't gone as far with sponsorship as other clubs have in the past. So far, we haven't seen the club seriously entertain the idea of selling the naming rights to St. James Park. We've seen that happen at "the other" St. James' Park in Newcastle in the past, and it was a move met with large-scale protests from fans. When owner Mike Ashley tried to rename the famous stadium in honor of his Sports Direct company, fans responded by ripping advertising hoardings down during a reserve team game against local rivals Sunderland. While Exeter City might have a Stagecoach stand, the historic name of the ground itself has been left untouched. The club does, however, have a shirt sponsor - or at least it used to.

As you'll know if you're a regular attendee at St. James' Park, the Grecians have been taking to the pitch with the logo of airline company Flybe on their shirts in a purple banner advertisement so far this season. This was a very long-standing arrangement - the longest in England's professional leagues - and has been in place since 2003. That will no longer be the case when football resumes. Flybe, as you may well have seen on the news, has ceased trading. We understand that the company had already made all the payment installments that it was due to make under the terms of the current sponsorship arrangement, and so the Grecians haven't been left out of pocket, but the idea of them renewing the deal for next season is clearly out of the question. That left the club searching for a new sponsor as quickly as possible. That could potentially have been a difficult task - but fortunately, a new sponsor has been found in next to no time, and they've committed to paying for their name to appear on home and away shirts for the next three seasons.

In keeping with Exeter's approach to sponsorship, the club has avoided the pitfall of going with a sponsor from the gambling world. Online slots companies and online casinos now sponsor more than fifty percent of Premier League football shirts and an even higher proportion in the Championship. As sports betting and online slots go hand in hand, securing sponsorship of a football club is seen as a key part of the marketing strategy of many casino companies. This may not be the case in years to come. The connection between new UK online slots and gambling companies and football teams is under close scrutiny from the UK Government at the time of writing, and it may be the case that the practice is banned in the not-too-distant future, with unclear implications for the clubs that have signed long-term deals with such companies. That won't be a matter that Exeter City concerns itself with. Their new sponsors couldn't be further removed from the gambling world if they tried.

As of next season, the name that will appear on official and replica Exeter City shirts is that of Carpetright, the Essex-based floor covering company. Founded in 1988, the company evolved from a single store in Canning Town to being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1993. Since then, it's continued to go from strength to strength, acquiring stores from Allied Carpets and spreading out across Europe, and since 2008 the company has counted Microsoft founder Bill Gates as being among its shareholders. It hasn't all been plain sailing - the company had to close over 90 stores in 2018 during a period of financial difficulty, but it's since righted the ship and is in a secure enough position to enter into a long term commercial partnership with the football club. The move comes after the hedge fund Meditor purchased it outright for a little over fifteen million pounds toward the end of 2019.

While Carpetright’s chief interest in the club will be the advertising and marketing opportunities it can secure by having its name appear on the front of football shirts, there’s likely have been a personal aspect involved in the company’s decision to approach Exeter City for sponsorship as opposed to any other football club. Will Walsh, the chief executive of Carpetright in the United Kingdom, happens to be a lifelong Exeter City fan and a season-ticket holder at St. James Park. He rarely misses a home game, and so it will be a cause of great personal pride for him when he sees his beloved team taking to the pitch wearing the logo of his company.

The move won't take effect until next season, as the existing Flybe deal is already paid up until the end of the season in progress. Whether Flybe's logo will still appear on the shirts is unclear. There's little point in advertising a company that doesn't exist, and when West Ham United found themselves in a similar situation several years ago when their shirt sponsors collapsed midseason, they covered over the logo with the shirt numbers of their players. Exeter City might take the same approach, or may use blank shirts for the remainder of this season's games - assuming, of course, that the games are played at all.

A new sponsor is likely to mean a whole new kit, so as we’re all now accustomed to, supporters will have to make a new purchase at the start of next season if they want to get the latest Exeter City look to wear on the terraces. We imagine designs for the new home and away shirts are being drawn up as we speak, and so we’ll be able to bring you the finalized designs for next season’s shirts very soon. In the meantime, we’ll be watching hopefully to see how the remainder of the season plays out. With Exeter poised just three points off the automatic promotion spaces and with a comfortable cushion inside the playoff zone, there’s far more to be excited about than the money that comes with a new short sponsorship deal!