Leeds United and their fans suffered a devasting loss on Sunday when Southampton won the Championship playoff final at Wembley Stadium 1-0 to clinch promotion to the Premier League, sending Leeds to another season in the second division of English soccer.
But Leeds picked up a win off the field this week with a new front-of-jersey sponsor in Red Bull, replacing BOXT. Terms of the multiyear agreement were not released, but it is expected to be the most lucrative in the Championship, according to someone familiar with the deal.
The energy drink giant also purchased a undisclosed minority stake in the club.
“Red Bull, with the history of success that they have had both sporting and commercial, feels like a really strong partner that is only going to catapult Leeds United,” Paraag Marathe, Leeds United chairman, said in a video interview.
Marathe said he started talking with Red Bull sporting director Oliver Mintzlaff six months ago, and as the two longtime sports executives grew more comfortable with each other, it spurred a sponsorship pact as well as a team investment. The deal was not contingent on Sunday’s result, although Marathe said “obviously at different values” as Premier League jersey sponsorships are worth more than $10 million in most cases and more than $50 million a year for top clubs.
This is Red Bull’s first sponsorship in English soccer. The name and logo of Leeds will remain unchanged.
“The ambition to bring Leeds United back to the Premier League and establish themselves in the best football league in the world fits very well with Red Bull,” Mintzlaff said in a statement announcing the partnership.
Marathe said his entire focus is making Leeds as competitive on the field as they can be, and that new “significant commercial partnerships” like this will help the team with profit and sustainability rules (PSR) that limit the operating losses a team can rack up over a three-year period.
Red Bull owns and operates five soccer clubs around the world: RB Leipzig (Germany), New York Red Bulls (U.S.), Red Bull Bragantino (Brazil), RB Brasil (Brazil) and FC Red Bull Salzburg (Austria). New York Red Bulls ($615 million) and Leipzig ($610 million) both cracked Sportico’s recent list of the world’s 50 most valuable soccer teams.
“They have a particular knowledge of more players because they’ve seen them with their eyeballs in multiple leagues that could help us,” Marathe said. “They have that global presence as we’re out evaluating players inbound or outbound.”
Marathe has been with the San Francisco 49ers for nearly a quarter-century and was appointed chairman of Leeds last year when 49ers Enterprises purchased majority control of the soccer club—it’s first limited partnership investment was in 2018.
Leeds’ cap table includes a deep roster of investors, including golfers Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, NBA players Larry Nance Jr. and T.J. McConnell, and actors Will Ferrell and Russell Crowe. And now Red Bull.
“I’m smart enough to know that I don’t know what I don’t know,” Marathe said. “So, if there’s an opportunity for me to lean on an investor, including Red Bull, to get some guidance and advice on what they would do in a sporting or commercial situation, I think that’s tremendous.”