Study: Football Fans Say No to Buying Gambling-Branded Kits

Survation revealed the results of a new poll, outlining what football fans think for gambling sponsorship. Some 34% of the responders said they wouldn’t buy a shirt by their club if it had a gambling logo on it, while 44% said all gambling advertising, sponsorship, and promotion should end.

A New Survey Reveals How UK Football Fans Feel about Gambling Sponsorship

A new study conducted by Survation revealed how football fans feel about sponsorship by gambling companies. The survey was conducted among 1006 football fans, age 18 or older living in the UK. When asked if all gambling advertising, sponsorship, and promotion should end, 44% of the responders supported the statement. However, a similar number of people disagreed with that statement – 34%.

Responding to a key question in the poll – if a football fan would buy the club’s shirt if it had a gambling logo on it, 34% said they wouldn’t buy it. On the other hand, 20% of the responders did not agree nor disagree with the statement and 44% said that they would buy a shirt with a gambling logo on it.

New Survation poll of football supporters for @cagauk/@cleanupgambling finds fans turning against gambling sponsorship of the game.https://t.co/RSfviYehu6

1006 football supporters aged 18+ living in UK, online 11 Sept 2020.

— Survation. (@Survation) October 11, 2020

One statement to which more than 50% of the responders agreed is that there are too many football teams sponsored by gambling companies. Some 58% of the responders said that there are too many teams supported by gambling companies while only 19% disagreed with that statement.

When asked if gambling companies shouldn’t be allowed to sponsor football clubs, 47% of the survey participants agreed. In contrast, 32% said that gambling companies should sponsor football clubs, while 19% of the responders neither agreed nor disagreed.

Too Much Gambling Advertising Connected to Football

According to 59% of the responders, there are too many gambling advertisements in football stadiums. Here, the respondents that disagreed with the statement were 18%, while 21% said they neither agree nor disagree.

But another question in the poll showed even bigger support for the ban of gambling ads on TV. Some 66% of the responders agreed with the statement that there are too many gambling ads connected to football matches on TV. Here, the opinion greatly differs as only 16% of the responders disagreed with that statement.

However, according to a spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), betting not only helps football with funding but also enables TV channels to broadcast more sports than it would otherwise be possible. According to the council, TV channels play a vital role when it comes to differentiating legally licensed operators from the ones operating on the black market.

The Whistle to Whistle Ban

Survation’s pool also focused on the “whistle to whistle” ban. The ban was announced back in December 2018 but was implemented on August 1, 2019. Under the “whistle to whistle” ban, betting advertising must not be shown on TV 5 minutes before the start of a live sporting event and 5 minutes after the end of the event, before the 9 pm watershed.

Back in August, the BGC revealed that the “whistle to whistle” ban dramatically reduced the number of betting ads seen by children. The Council based those results on a study by Enders Analysis which found that the number of betting ads seen by children fell by 97%.

“The BGC has introduced tough new measures to further prevent under-18s viewing betting ads online and our members have agreed that at least 20% of their TV and radio adverts must be safer gambling messages,”

said a spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council

Based on the results of the recent poll, a significant number of the responders agree that the “whistle to whistle” ban is preventing children from seeing gambling ads in football with 67% of the responders supporting the statement. And here, the number of responders who disagreed with the statement shrank to only 8%, while 18% neither agreed nor disagreed.