SPFL and William Hill – a deal that ‘goes beyond traditional football sponsorship’

With football’s relationship with the gambling industry under immense pressure in the UK, the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) has decided to take its own route regarding such sponsorships.

The SPFL ‘shouldn’t be stuffy about gambling,’ according to its CEO Neil Doncaster, who recently described partnering with UK-based William Hill as an ‘obvious fit’.

Emphasising however that he agrees with the English Premier League’s decision to enforce a ban on betting shirt sponsors at the end of 2025/26 season, Doncaster delves into the discourses around betting deals, backlash against recent ones, and upcoming changes in the English top-flight.

Scottish football keen to avoid the dilemma

In June, the SPFL announced its deal with Evoke Plc-owned Wiliam Hill which became the primary sponsor of all four divisions of Scottish football – the Premiership, Championship, League One and League Two.

“I think it’s important to stress that gambling is a legitimate and lawful leisure activity that is enjoyed by millions of people,” Doncaster emphasised to SBC News, sharing his views during a recent press call.

Shifting attention from Scotland for a moment, it is important to assess what has been going on in the English Premier League. Top-flight clubs are due to move away from front-of-shirt deals with betting sponsors after the 2026/27 season, although sleeve partners and in-stadia advertising will remain.

With just two years for clubs to capitalise on the revenue and for bookmakers to seize the branding value these partnerships represent, English teams have been seeking to get in on the action while they can. 

There has been some fan backlash against this to an extent, particularly around deals with overseas casinos unfamiliar to UK audiences. Crystal Palace’s deal with Net88 and Wolves’ deal with DE.BET, for example, received a somewhat frosty reception on social media platform X.

“I’m reluctant to offer advice to others,” Doncaster says. “I’m trying to be respectful of the fact that they’ve got their business to run and we’ve got ours, but certainly from our point of view, to be partnering with a UK-based, well established operator, when we had a choice of partners to go with, William Hill were an obvious fit.”

Although not specifying any clubs or leagues, Scottish football seems keen to stay out of the drama. Doncaster explains that partnering with a company like William Hill, which has been active since 1934 and is a familiar face on the country’s high streets, falls well in line with the SPFL’s responsibility commitments.

“From our point of view, being aware of the environment is important,” he says. “But at the same time, to be partnering with a very established UK-based much loved gambling company with gambling awareness and responsible gambling at the heart of its strategy, I think is entirely appropriate for this league to do.”

Keeping a close eye on the English Prem

Joining Doncaster at the press conference was William Hill CEO, Per Widerström, who explained to assembled media that the brand felt the time was right for it to re-sign as the SPFL’s partner.

Football is a big deal in Scotland. For a country of just under six million people, football attendance and viewership per capita are among the highest in the world. Sky Sports, the league’s principal broadcasting partner, reported a 24% year-over-year increase in viewership for the 2023/24 season.

To top things off, the league’s engagement extends beyond Scottish borders – Widerström notes that 44% of the SPFL’s viewership comes from outside Scotland. Maintaining a relationship with the league is valuable for brands like William Hill, making its return as an SPFL partner after being replaced by Cinch between 2021 and 2023.

“This is our biggest sponsorship engagement,” Widerström tells SBC News. “It’s very important for us. Having the SPFL, being the most supported league in Europe per capita, is an amazing platform to start with. 

“The passion and love for football, we are very much sharing that. It’s important for us in light of our presence and our heritage in Scotland. We are 90 years old as the William Hill brand, we have more than 200 betting shops in Scotland and we are an integral part of the local communities.”

The relationship between football and betting is as old as the sport itself, dating back to before the legalisation of off-course bookmakers (i.e. high street betting shops) in 1960. William Hill has played a key role in this historic relationship, being one of the first to introduce a football coupon in its shops and signing several sponsorship deals.

Although regulatory developments in English football do not directly impact Scottish football, it is clear from Doncaster’s comments to SBC News that the Scottish system does, for good reason, keep a close eye on its southern counterpart. 

One of the most notable developments in the commercial side of English football in recent weeks was the introduction of a Code of Conduct. This code was one of the April 2023 Gambling Act review White Paper’s flagship measures around sports marketing – to the disappointment of some reform advocates who wanted to see more radical change.

“I think we’re open minded,” Doncaster remarks when asked whether Scotland has plans for a similar code. “You know clearly it’s the beginning of our partnership with William Hill, and we’ll be looking to work with them and agree on how best to roll out the sponsorship.

“We’ve seen the code of conduct being developed south of the border. We’ve got good relations with the English Football League and the English Premier League and we’ll be keen to understand from their point of view how it’s working for them, and take a view of its appropriateness north of the border.”

Moving past the traditional football sponsorship

The UK’s Gambling Act review was a long process, taking nearly three years. To put things in perspective, during this time Rangers won its first Scottish title since 2021, St Johnstone claimed its second-ever Scottish Cup, and three months after the White Paper’s April publication, Celtic won its eighth domestic treble.

Throughout this long process, responsibility came to the forefront as the underlying discipline sought by authorities to reconcile sponsorships with leagues, clubs and competitions. Whilst Scottish football may not be looking to adopt a code of conduct into its commercial betting deals, at least not yet, it is still making responsibility a priority.

EPIC Global Solutions, a gambling harm minimisation consultancy group and host of the press conference, will play a key role in the SPFL’s deal with William Hill. The latter provides funding for EPIC’s activity, which includes training, education, awareness and consultancy to people affected by problem gambling.

William Hill has a history of working with EPIC, Widerström explains, asserting that the company is genuine and positive in its aims to reduce gambling harms, working with sporting partners to do so. The inclusion of EPIC has brought in a ‘completely different type of dimension of the sponsorship’, he claims, a dimension which ‘goes beyond traditional sponsorship’.

Betting sponsorship is becoming an increasingly challenging task, one which is facing mounting public pressure. For stakeholders like the SPFL and William Hill, which want to pursue positive commercial relationships moving forward, making responsibility ‘integral’ to partnerships, as William Hill’s CEO states, is an important requirement of betting marketing.

Widerström continues: “The collaboration or partnership with SPFL, together with EPIC, is hugely important because once again we are able then to have a fantastic platform for the fans, for the community – which is what we all love, the action of football, the events of football – but at the same time refer back to the importance of being educated and supported when it comes to safer gambling.”

Although the gambling review may be complete, the dislike some sports fans show towards betting sponsorships hasn’t disappeared. Continuing campaigns like ‘The Big Step’ and ‘Gambling With Lives’ are indicative of this.

The challenge of ensuring balance

However, the code of conduct in England and the writing of responsibility to Scotland’s flagship betting-sports deal shows that progress is being made. The SPFL’s engagement with a well known brand in the UK also shows awareness that many fans are not keen on the many Asia-facing betting deals seen in the English game lately.

“We had a choice of companies this summer.” says Doncaster, “and you know, not all of the brands that we were engaging with were as well known in the UK as William Hill, and I think what we’ve tried to do is balance the commercial needs of the league and our 42 member clubs with the need to drive money into the game.”

Ultimately, football and betting will always have a close relationship as long as football fans want to bet on it – as the sport is now the most wagered upon in the UK, taking over from horse racing in 2019, its clear demand isn’t dying out.

As bookmakers continue to look for marketing opportunities in football and clubs and leagues face a never-ending need to ensure revenue from as many areas as possible, the main hurdle is about controlling balance. 

This is something the SPFL and William Hill are confident their partnership, most significantly the responsibility role of EPIC, has achieved. The fact that Scotland has, in Doncaster’s words, ‘relatively few gambling sponsorships currently in place’ in comparison to some other leagues, may also help it achieve this balance. 

In three years, the English top-flight will move sponsorships to shirt sleeves and stadium billboards, and the code of conduct will be well established. The SPFL’s William Hill deal too will be in its second year, and hopefully, by then stakeholders will have valuable insights into how betting’s relationship with football can progress positively and responsibly.