Leicester City, the English soccer club, has signed a new three-year main shirt sponsorship deal with FBS, the global online trading company.
The agreement will officially begin at start of the 2021-22 season in what the club has described as a “record” principal partnership deal.
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FBS replaces King Power, the Thai travel retail group which has served as Leicester’s front-of-shirt sponsor since the 2010-11 season in a deal worth around £4 million ($5.65 million) per year.
King Power, a company owned by Leicester’s Thai owners, handed its sponsorship rights to the Thailand Tourism Authority last season in an effort to attract foreign visitors back to the country and support its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Premier League outfit debuted the FBS logo on their shirts for their final Premier League game of the 2020-21 season, at home to Tottenham Hotspur, on Sunday.
Susan Whelan, Leicester City chief executive, said: “Establishing key partners of this scale and ambition has always been a central part of our vision for the club, enabling us to keep investing in improvement and growth while enhancing the club’s profile all over the world.
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By GlobalData“We are looking forward to working with FBS to bring to life our vision for the partnership to the world and our global fanbase.”
Yulia Ivanova, FBS chief executive, added: “We are very excited about this partnership and the opportunity to align FBS with Leicester City. It will significantly expand our brand positioning and it will help us market our comprehensive solutions portfolio to all customers globally.”
FBS will have prominence on the front of Leicester’s shirts alongside kit supplier adidas, the German sportswear giant. Vietnamese beer brand Bia Saigon is the team’s sleeve sponsor.
The 4-2 defeat to Tottenham meant Leicester, which recently won the FA Cup for the first time in their history, finished fifth in the Premier League and narrowly missed out on qualification for the Uefa Champions League for the second consecutive year. They will instead be in the second-tier Europa League again.
Meanwhile, Everton teamed up with Piing, the crowd gaming developer, to increase fan engagement at their Goodison Park home on matchdays as spectators returned to stadiums in the UK over the past week.
The two parties have collaborated on mass participation gaming initiatives such as interactive games and quizzes within the stadium as part of a fan engagement initiative aimed at encouraging supporters to remain in their seats to avoid overcrowding in the concourses, in line with Covid-19 social distancing measures.
Everton first worked with Piing back in December 2020, leveraging its technology at Goodison Park for two Premier League fixtures and a EFL Cup quarter-final match.
The Merseyside club welcomed a crowd of just over 6,000 for their final home game of the season last Wednesday against Wolverhampton Wanderers as limited capacity crowds at sporting venues were permitted by the government under its roadmap to ease lockdown restrictions in the UK.
Fans who arrived early to the game were given the opportunity to participate in interactive games prior to kick-off using their mobile phones.
Gareth Langley, chief executive of Piing, said: “We’re delighted to have been able to support Everton in their mission to provide engaging and stimulating content for their fans. Simultaneously, from a marketing perspective we have also ensured enhanced brand-interaction with the fans; providing positive brand touch-points for the Club and their partners through digital platforms.”
Piing creates gaming experiences for virtual and real-world stadium-sized crowds and provides customer engagement and marketing opportunities for its clients, which include Premier League clubs and blue chip brands.
Everton's fan engagement strategy was outlined in May's edition of 'In the Boardroom'.
