Why Huddersfield Town keeping changing their shirt sponsors (and why other clubs should follow their example)
Angelo Frusciante
Date Published: 15th March 2021
Credit: footballshirtcollective.com
Eighteen months ago, the Paddy Power x Huddersfield marketing stunt left fans across the country reeling. To some, the campaign was a brilliant initiative, for others, the experience left something of a sour taste in the mouth.
Moving fast to 2020/21 Huddersfield have been making much smaller waves on the shirt front. In reality though, what we have seen this year deserves more recognition that the Paddy Power stunt.
Last November Huddersfield Town announced the launch of a new shirt sponsorship scheme that would run through to the end of the 2020/21 campaign. Having failed to secure a primary sponsor for the 2020 season, Huddersfield took a creative approach to the ‘problem’ of having no sponsor.
Local businesses were given the chance to have their logo featured as a primary shirt sponsor (subject to FA approval, of course) on a week-to-week basis by way of a match-by-match raffle. Each match had a maximum of 20 raffle entries (with a ticket costing £250+VAT each), though companies were also given the option to buy out all 20 tickets to secure their place as a sponsor.
The profile of the businesses that have got involved has been fascinating to see. A variety of outfits have taken part since the scheme started, from industrial leaders with decades of experience to family-run local enterprises.
I’ve not run the numbers, but I guess that Huddersfield will end the campaign with the highest number of shirt variations we’ve ever seen in a given season.
Some experts compared this campaign with Atlético Madrid’s famous 2003/04 season, which saw the club’s shirts adorned with various major films as part of a deal with Columbia pictures.
On the surface the Huddersfield Town sponsors scheme seems little more than an alternative approach to the typical, financially-driven mindset that naturally surrounds shirt sponsorship. Digging a little deeper though, the scheme is giving back in a number of significant ways.
Following each match, the company whose logo featured on the match shirts are given the option to either keep the match worn shirts, or have them auctioned off to a charity of their choosing.
What’s more, a number of local charities including the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and The Kirkwood hospice have also featured in the place of a sponsor during the season.
The Huddersfield Town sponsors model has undoubtedly shone a light on the potential to use football shirts, and specifically football shirt ‘sponsors’, for good.
Many big teams have dabbled with the idea of featuring charities on the front of their shirts, with teams like Liverpool and Chelsea tweaking their sponsors for specific matches to highlight the charitable foundations of their primary sponsors at the time.
Manchester United’s deal with Chevrolet is reportedly set to expire at the halfway point of the 2021/22 season, and why shouldn’t they take the opportunity to forfeit a relatively small slice of revenue in exchange for the support of charities and local businesses?
It’s a tall task especially given the lost income following the covid-19 situation, but despite the relentless tide of commercialism in the game we shouldn’t forget our roots.
Football clubs exist in real towns and cities with real people. Many of those people have been devastated by the pandemic, and even established businesses have found themselves on the brink of collapse. More importantly, charities who were already stretched have never been more needed in the wake of the social devastation around us.
The simple act of a logo on a shirt won’t change those situations overnight, but it would go a long way to showing that a club actually cares about the people and the fans of the area they live in.