English soccer giants Chelsea have announced events and ticketing platform Fever as a major new partner for the 2024-25 season.
As principal partner, Fever will gain prominent branding on Chelsea's shirt sleeves across all home, away, and third kits during the partnership.
The deal, however, only fills one shirt sponsorship slot for Chelsea, as the main front-of-shirt rights are still yet to be sold. This represents the second season in a row in which Chelsea have played their first Premier League game without a front-of-shirt sponsor, with Infinite Athlete having only signed up to that role last campaign in late September 2023.
The Fever sponsorship will cover Chelsea’s men’s team of the top-tier English Premier League, as well as the club’s women’s team, who have won the last five editions of the Women’s Super League.
Both of Chelsea's first teams will play pan-continental club soccer this season, with Chelsea women's in the UEFA Women's Champions League once again having reached the semi-final last season, while Chelsea's men's side will look to enter UEFA's third-tier Conference League if they emerge victorious against Swiss side Servette in the upcoming qualifying round.
Furthermore, Fever will offer access to Chelsea benefits and experiences through an exclusive page on its events platform.
The club have said that details of the partnership will be unveiled at a launch event at a later date.
Speaking on the deal, Chelsea chief revenue officer Casper Stylsvig stated: “As a company [Fever has] been hugely innovative in the live entertainment industry, helping [it’s] users to access events and experiences in a new way. [Fever’s] service level is first-class, and we know [it] will help people discover not only Chelsea but also London as a city as well, in a unique and immersive way.”
Mariano Oter, Fever senior vice president of global business development Mariano Otero added that the partnership will help Fever to further its mission to grow the fan experience at top brands, adding: “This partnership will equip one of the world’s top football clubs with cutting-edge technology, creating even more exciting and creative ways for fans to engage with their team.”
In becoming sleeve sponsor at the club, Fever supplants the previous temporary sleeve sponsor BingX, the cryptocurrency company that had only become the sponsor for that category in January.
BingX now moves into a new category as the official training kit sponsor for the 2024-25 campaign, as had been agreed on initially as it allowed the club to grow its inventory and accommodated the end of hotel company Trivago’s training kit sponsorship at the end of the 2023-24 season.
Infinite Athlete, meanwhile, have downgraded their deal since the end of last season, having only been front-of-shirt sponsor for the club's pre-season tour of the US, before switching their deal to sleeve sponsor for club training kits.
One game into the Premier League season, Chelsea are still without a front-of-shirt sponsor, with a source familiar with the deal telling Sportcal that valuation Chelsea have put on the sponsorship inventory is far in excess of what prospective partners are willing to pay given that the club finished seventh in the Premier League in 2023-24 and is playing third-tier international soccer in the Conference League, a far sight less valuable commercially than the Champions League.
