Welcome to Insider Sport’s latest edition of the Partnership Playbook, where we bring you details on the latest sports partnerships and sponsorships.
When I was younger and imagined what sport would look like in 2026, I pictured football boots with jets and racing cars that could fly.
This week’s top stories include a football shirt with 1,000 sponsors and a sound system trying to make electric racing cars sound louder. Maybe I was a bit too optimistic.
All jokes aside, Deportivo Municipal’s crowdfunding campaign leads the way, while Formula E is taking a different approach to its sound. Arsenal and Emirates have also reminded us that, sometimes, the most interesting thing about a partnership is simply how long it lasts.
Elsewhere, MMA’s complicated relationship with betting is under the microscope in Latin America.
Deportivo Municipal turns its shirt into a 1,000-business crowdfunding campaign
Sports kits overcrowded by sponsors usually get a bad name, but in Peru, it has just helped save a football club.
Deportivo Municipal has unveiled a new shirt featuring 1,000 individual sponsors, with tiny black-and-white advertising spaces filling the shirt around the club’s traditional red sash.
The design is part of “Los Mil Sponsors del Muni”, a crowdfunding campaign launched as the Lima football club struggles financially. Playing in Peru’s third tier, Deportivo Municipal turned to small businesses and supporters for help, selling each advertising space for around 200 Peruvian Soles (£44).
The campaign sold all 1,000 spaces within three months, raising more than 254,000 Soles to keep the club running and fund its youth programmes.
Sponsors on the shirt also receive exposure on the club’s social channels, as well as access to players to help promote their businesses.
The kit, which has claimed a small piece of football history, is similar to The Million Dollar Homepage, the 2005 internet phenomenon in which British student Alex Tew sold one million pixels as advertising space to fund his university education.
It could even provide some inspiration for Chelsea, which has spent recent seasons struggling to find a long term front-of-shirt sponsor. Maybe 1,000 small ones are easier than finding one big one.
Formula E wants to make electric racing sound louder
Formula E has spent years trying to convince fans that electric racing can be just as exciting as combustion-engine racing, without the same noise. It is, however, trying to enhance its sound via a partnership with audio specialist Sennheiser.
The company has become the official sound provider of Formula E in a multi-year agreement, with its technology set to be integrated across the championship’s broadcast and trackside operations.
Sennheiser’s AMBEO immersive audio technology will be used to create three-dimensional sound for viewers at home, as well as improve fan zones and VIP hospitality at races.
With Formula E entering its GEN4 era, Sennheiser will help capture the sounds of its latest generation of cars and aim to create a more immersive viewing experience for fans.
Andreas Sennheiser, CEO of Sennheiser Group, said: “Formula E represents exactly the kind of environment where meaningful innovation happens…this collaboration gives us an exciting opportunity to rethink the role sound can play in electric racing.
“Great visuals deserve equally compelling sound, and we see real potential to define the sport’s unique acoustic character through dynamic in-car and trackside soundscapes.”
Arsenal and Emirates extend one of football’s longest partnerships
Tottenham Hotspur has yet to secure a stadium sponsor, but its North London rival has just extended its naming rights partnership for another seven years.
Arsenal and Emirates have agreed a renewal that will see the airline remain the club’s front-of-shirt, training kit and stadium naming rights partner through to 2033.
The partnership began in 2006, before Arsenal moved from Highbury into its current stadium and has continued throughout the entire Emirates Stadium era. The extension means it will be the Premier League’s longest-running front-of-shirt partnership.
The renewal follows Arsenal’s recent Premier League title win, with the two organisations set to carry on initiatives, including the Emirates Cup and Global Gooners, which bring international supporters to Arsenal matches.
Richard Garlick, Arsenal Chief Executive, said Emirates had been “an integral part of this success”, while Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline, described the relationship as having grown “far beyond a traditional partnership”.
“We have grown alongside the club through changes of era and ambition, united by a shared goal of bringing people closer to what they love,” added Clark.
“In practice, that has meant reaching the millions who follow Arsenal across the Emirates network and beyond and creating experiences for them that neither of us could have done alone.
MMA’s betting integrity concerns prompt partnership for LUX Fight League
MMA has spent the past year dealing with questions around betting integrity and another promotion is taking steps to protect itself from the problem.
The LUX Fight League, one of Latin America’s leading organisations, has signed an information-sharing agreement with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) to bolster cooperation around suspicious betting activity and potential corruption.
The memorandum of understanding will cover information sharing, integrity education and operational cooperation, with IBIA providing its suspicious betting reports and intelligence to the promotion at no cost.
Like in many sports, gambling has become an important part of MMA’s commercial model, with betting companies among the sport’s prominent sponsors. However, those partnerships can look particularly problematic when accusations of match manipulation are rife.
Speaking to Insider Sport last year, OKTAGON Co-founder Pavol Neruda acknowledged that the growing relationship between MMA and betting was making integrity management more complicated.
“We have to work hard to prove to these partners that our sport is legitimate and that we have the mechanisms to prevent issues like fraud,” he said.
Neruda also said that MMA could do more on education, while calling for federations and promotions to develop more consistent approaches.
In other news:
- MotoGP saw title sponsorship revenue decline in the second quarter due to the mix of events, although overall sponsorship revenue increased in the first half of 2026.
- Aston Villa has partnered with NordVPN, with the VPN provider set to educate supporters on online security and provide protection when fans access digital services around Villa Park on matchdays.
- Cardiff City has named payments app Zilch its official way to pay, with supporters receiving 10% off food, drink and merchandise at the stadium when paying with Zilch.
- PMU has announced an agreement with BetMakers Technology Group to expand its international horse racing betting offering across both pool and fixed-odds markets.
- XTB has signed a three-year main partnership with Olympique Lyonnais, becoming the Polish broker’s third European football club deal since April, following agreements with Napoli and FC Porto.
- FC Bayern Munich has announced a deal with Google, with Gemini becoming the club’s first consumer AI partner and Google Pixel its official smartphone partner.
If you would like to stay up to date with the latest sports partnerships and sponsorship deals, you can subscribe to Insider Sport’s LinkedIn newsletter to get Partnership Playbook delivered to your inbox every Wednesday.
