For six seasons, the Hollywoodbets logo has been one of the most recognisable sights in west London. It sat on the back of Brentford shirts during the 2020/21 promotion campaign, then moved to the front when the club arrived in the Premier League in 2021/22. On 14 August 2026, Brentford FC confirmed that the relationship will continue for a further five years, with Hollywoodbets re-signed as the club's official betting partner ahead of what will be its seventh season with the Bees.
The headline is not the extension itself. It is where the logo goes next. From the 2026/27 season, Premier League clubs have voluntarily withdrawn gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts, so the South African operator is stepping off the jersey and into the stadium. Its new package is built around prominent in-stadium matchday branding, access to first-team players, hosting at the Gtech Community Stadium and a larger community programme.
That shift makes the Brentford deal one of the clearest case studies of the summer. It shows how a Sports Betting brand can keep a meaningful place inside the world's most watched football league after losing its most valuable piece of inventory, and it says a lot about how clubs, operators and regulators are adapting to the new rules. For anyone working in iGaming, sponsorship or brand strategy, the details are worth a closer look.
According to Brentford FC, the renewed agreement keeps Hollywoodbets in the role of official betting partner and retains a set of rights that sit comfortably outside the scope of the shirt ban. The operator keeps prominent in-stadium matchday branding, meet-and-greets with first-team players and use of the Gtech Community Stadium for matchday hosting. In other words, the brand stays visible to the crowd and to the cameras, and it keeps the hospitality assets that matter for customer and partner relationships.
The fan side of the deal carries on as well. Supporters will still be offered training ground tours, player meet-and-greets and the chance to play on the pitch at the annual Hollywoodbets Supporters' Cup. These are modest touches on paper, but they are exactly the kind of experiences that turn a sponsor's name into a memory for the people who matter most to a club.
The community element has been strengthened. The club says the partnership will deliver stronger support for the Brentford FC Community Sports Trust through the Hollywood Foundation, the operator's charitable arm. It builds on the Hollywood Heroes scheme, which honoured members of the west London community with hospitality tickets and dinner with senior leaders. SBC News adds that community youth coaches and volunteers will continue to receive hospitality at the Gtech Community Stadium under the new terms.
Adam Ward, Brentford's head of partnership services, framed the renewal around long term thinking. "Like Brentford, Hollywoodbets are ambitious and are always thinking long term," he said. "We are very fortunate to have them as a partner and their commitment to the club over the years has been remarkable." He added that entering a seventh year "proves the strength of the relationship" and that he was pleased to see Hollywoodbets continue to share the club's commitment to making a positive impact in both communities.
Devin Heffer, brand and communications manager at Hollywoodbets, addressed the shirt change head on. "While our logo may no longer feature on the front of the jersey, the Brentford crest remains firmly on our hearts," he said. He described the team as "incredibly excited to be extending our partnership for another five years" and said the company was particularly looking forward to the community projects ahead through the Hollywood Foundation and the Brentford FC Community Sports Trust, while continuing to create memorable experiences for fans who "have made us feel so welcome over the past six years." Neither side disclosed the value of the deal.
The partnership began in November 2020, when Brentford were still a Championship club. Hollywoodbets first appeared as back-of-shirt partner during the 2020/21 campaign, which ended with promotion through the play-offs. When Brentford reached the top flight for 2021/22, the operator moved to the front of the shirt and stayed there through every Premier League season that followed.
The final front-of-shirt year was always going to be 2025/26. When the club announced that renewal on 1 July 2025, Brentford said Hollywoodbets would continue as front-of-shirt partner for the men's first team until the end of that season, extending the deal into a fifth Premier League campaign. At the time, Heffer said Hollywoodbets was "proud to be renewing our front-of-shirt sponsorship with Brentford for one final season," and pointed to the club's rise from the Championship to a top 10 Premier League finish. Commercial director Fran Jones called it "a fantastic long-standing partnership."
Brentford also explained the community roots of the relationship in that 2025 announcement. The partnership had included financial support for the Community Sports Trust and fan perks such as matchday experiences, training ground tours and matches on the Gtech Community Stadium pitch. The Hollywood Foundation itself was set up in 2021 to support communities in South Africa through education and development. That two-country community story gives the brand something to talk about that is not a price, a bonus or an odds boost, which is a useful asset for any Online Gambling company operating under growing scrutiny.
The ban dates back to 13 April 2023, when the Premier League announced that its clubs had collectively agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of matchday shirts. The League described itself as the first sports league in the UK to take such a measure voluntarily in order to reduce gambling advertising. The decision followed consultation with the clubs and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as part of the government's review of gambling legislation, and the League said it was working with other sports on a new code for responsible gambling sponsorship. The change was set to take effect at the end of the 2025/26 season, giving clubs a long transition window.
At the time, The Guardian reported that eight of the 20 Premier League clubs, Brentford among them, had betting companies as front-of-shirt sponsors, with those contracts worth about £60 million a year combined. Crucially, the same report noted that gambling brands could still appear on shirt sleeves and pitchside hoardings. As Gambling.com summarised in August 2026, the ban covers only the front of the shirt. Sleeves, training kit, pitchside boards and stadium advertising were never part of it.
That narrow scope explains everything about the Brentford renewal. The most visible single spot on a football kit has been taken off the table, but the rest of the commercial inventory a club can sell remains open to Sports Betting and Casino brands. For operators, the question has shifted from whether to sponsor Premier League football to which assets deliver the best return now that the shirt front is gone.
Brentford solved its shirt question months before the Hollywoodbets extension was announced. On 21 April 2026, as reported by Sportcal, the club confirmed that Indeed, the employment platform that became its training kit sponsor at the start of 2025/26, would move to the front of the shirt from the 2026/27 season. Indeed's branding appears on all men's and women's first-team playing kits and academy matchday kits, and the company gained a bigger presence on matchdays and across the club's digital channels. Cazoo remains the sleeve sponsor.
Chief executive Jon Varney said the club was "very proud to welcome Indeed to the front of our shirts from next season," describing a partnership "driven by our shared belief in using data to inform smart recruitment." For a club famous for its analytical approach to the transfer market, the fit is neat. It also shows the playbook many clubs followed: upgrade an existing non-gambling partner to the shirt, then keep the betting partner in a different, compliant role rather than lose that revenue entirely.
Sportcal put the scale of what was at stake into numbers. It valued the Premier League front-of-shirt market at $525.4 million in the 2025/26 season, with gambling brands accounting for $129.6 million of that total. That is a large slice of income to replace, and it helps explain why so few clubs walked away from betting partners altogether.
Brentford was far from alone. Insider Sport reported that Manchester United signed a record £20 million per year deal with Betway as its training kit partner, while Aston Villa re-signed Betano as sleeve sponsor in a three year partnership worth a reported £4 million per year. Tottenham Hotspur also picked up Betano as training wear partner. Flashscore noted that Betway was named United's official principal partner, with its logo on the training kit of the men's and women's teams and around Old Trafford, and quoted chief business officer Marc Armstrong saying the partnership "reflects our growth strategy."
Gambling.com tracked similar moves elsewhere. Everton's front-of-shirt sponsor Stake moved to the sleeve under a new multi year deal announced on 30 June 2026, with trading platform CMC Markets taking the front. AFC Bournemouth signed MrQ in July as shirt sleeve sponsor and Official UK Online Casino Partner. Arsenal's Betway relationship, first announced in September 2023, continued as a global betting partnership that sits outside the restriction. iGaming Expert added that at least eight teams needed new principal shirt sponsors this summer, and highlighted how operators with African audiences, such as Hollywoodbets and Betano, continue to see value in Premier League exposure.
Insider Sport's Kieran O'Connor summed up the mood bluntly. "Are betting companies spending less on football? Hardly. Will they have even more exposure this season? Almost certainly," he wrote. SBC News made the same point, noting that betting firms remain widely present in the league through sleeve deals, training kit partnerships and official club partner deals, and that viewers may even see more gambling brands this season because of the partnerships agreed over the summer.
In the days that followed the Brentford news, the picture became even clearer. On 18 August 2026, SBC News published a club by club tally showing that 19 of the 20 Premier League clubs had a gambling partner of some kind, across 31 separate deals, with Hull City the only exception. The same piece cited a YouGov survey in which 77 percent of people supported the shirt ban, a reminder that public sentiment and commercial reality are moving in different directions.
The first lesson from Brentford is that loyalty has a commercial value of its own. Hollywoodbets did not need to buy its way back onto a shirt somewhere else. It had six years of shared history, a recognisable presence at the stadium and a community programme already running. Renewing for five years locks in that equity at a moment when competitors are scrambling for sleeves and training kits. As reported by Invixos, the operator keeps the official betting partner title, which gives it a clean, compliant label to activate around.
The second lesson is that matchday and broadcast visibility can survive without the shirt. In-stadium branding at a Premier League ground is seen by everyone in the seats and, depending on placement, by television audiences far beyond London. Player access powers content marketing, social clips and hospitality experiences. None of those assets depends on a logo on the chest, and together they arguably give a brand more ways to tell its story than a static shirt placement ever did.
The third lesson concerns risk. A front-of-shirt deal puts a betting brand on replica kits worn by fans of every age. A stadium, hospitality and community package is easier to defend, both to regulators and to the public. With the YouGov figure showing broad support for the ban, operators that lean into community work and responsible messaging are likely to find their partnerships more durable. For Online Gambling brands, the Hollywood Foundation link with the Community Sports Trust is not decoration. It is part of what makes the whole deal sustainable.
Finally, the Brentford deal shows how important structure has become. Insider Sport and SBC News both describe operators finding routes around the ban through sleeves, training kits and partner titles. That creativity works only if the rights are carefully defined: what branding appears where, which audiences are targeted, which markets a partner title covers and how activation complies with local advertising codes. This is where specialist iGaming Consulting earns its keep, because the value of a modern betting partnership sits in the detail of the contract rather than in one big logo.
The Premier League's rules apply to English football, but the thinking behind the Brentford renewal travels well. Brands across the Gulf that are weighing sports sponsorship deals face the same core question Hollywoodbets answered this summer: which assets genuinely move the needle, and which are simply expensive vanity placements? A shirt front is powerful, but so is a well activated stadium presence, a player content series or a community programme that fans can see and feel.
For companies exploring sports sponsorship opportunities in Dubai, from UAE football club sponsorship to event and venue partnerships, the Brentford model offers a useful template. Think in multi year terms, because relationships compound. Build rights packages that combine visibility, hospitality and community impact. Plan the content around those rights from day one, so that every matchday and meet-and-greet feeds a wider content marketing and social programme. And always design the deal with the regulatory direction of travel in mind, not just the rules in force on the day of signing.
For iGaming operators, Sports Betting brands, Casino groups and Online Gambling companies of every size, the message is that football remains open for business, but the most effective partnerships are now more thoughtful than a single logo placement. iGaming Consulting teams that understand both the sponsorship market and the compliance environment can help operators choose between sleeves, training kits, regional partner titles and stadium packages, and then activate them responsibly. Good iGaming Consulting also means knowing when a deal does not fit a market, which is just as valuable as knowing when it does.
Brentford and Hollywoodbets have shown that a sponsorship can lose its most visible asset and still grow in depth. The logo has left the front of the jersey, but the partnership now runs for five more years, with more emphasis on fans, community and the matchday experience. For the wider iGaming industry, and for every brand watching how football handles the end of betting shirt sponsors, that may prove the more interesting story.
Sources: Brentford FC, SBC News, Insider Sport, Invixos, iGaming Expert, Gambling.com, Sportcal, Premier League, The Guardian, Flashscore, Gaming Intelligence
