Barclay’s Premier League May Be No Longer

By: chris | December 18th, 2008

Financial times are tough, in case you hadn’t noticed, so plenty of big companies are taking another look at how some of their advertising/sponsorship money is being spent and whether or not that’s the greatest of ideas in the current climate. One of these companies is Barclay’s, which means the Prem may be looking for a new sponsor in the near future.

Britain’s third largest bank has held naming rights to the league since 2001 but its three-year, $101 million deal ends after the 2009-10 season.

“There will be a thorough review of our sponsorships to make sure that we are getting a strong return on investment across the board,” Libby Chambers, Barclays’ global retail and commercial banking chief marketing officer, said in an interview with Marketing Week.

This comes on the same day where Gareth Southgate warned there could be a fall like the one suffered by Serie A a few years ago. Back when Serie A was the Premier League before the Premier League.

“I can see a Serie A-style collapse happening in English football,” said the 38-year-old, referring to the financial mess that Italian football is extricating itself from. “I think there’s a danger about our game that people think it will just keep growing — but there may have to be a period when clubs change the way they do things.

“Everything goes in cycles. A few years ago Serie A was definitely the place to play. All the money was in their league and it was the place where players got paid the most. That place is now the Premier League. We have the best players at the moment but history tells us that things don’t always stay that way forever.”

And he’s right. Premier League clubs don’t spend smartly and these things do run in cycles. Something the clubs may notice when sponsors and advertisers start to review their numbers come early 2009.

Changing the Premier League name may only be a small step – well, not when you’re still calling it Barclay’s 5 years down the road – but this could be an indicator of major changes to come.

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