On February 1, English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur fought back from two goals down to secure a two-goal draw against Manchester City. The fixture, one of the best results for Spurs so far in the 2025-26 campaign, was notable for another reason. February 1 also saw the physical launch of Tottenham’s partnership with Sports Illustrated Tickets (SIT).
That partnership, which will run for a 12-year term, has seen the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium’s east stand atrium refurbished with Sports Illustrated Tickets branding. Utilizing historic front-cover designs from its eponymous US sports publication (combined with historic Tottenham images and matchday program covers), SIT has installed interactive panel displays that adorn stairways and hallways around the stand, integrating the “Sports Illustrated Tickets' Defining Moments” platform. Additionally, premium hospitality space across the stand has also been retooled for the partnership, including ‘Club SI’ and the ‘Cover Club’ bar.
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Branding presence, which extends to general allocation areas, demonstrates SIT’s position as a member of The Collective, Spurs’ new elite sponsorship tier, which is centered around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The four-sponsor group will represent a partnership for each of the four stands at the 68,400-capacity venue, with SIT the first member of the tier.
“I think [SIT] was absolutely the right partner for us to launch with. We've actually even slightly delayed some of the other conversations [with prospective Collective partners], wanting to make sure we get this one right,” explained Ryan Norys, “especially because the [Sports Illustrated] brand is such an iconic one.”
Norys, Tottenham’s chief revenue officer, first put the wheels of the partnership in motion over a year ago, when he met SIT chief executive David Lane on a golf course outside of New Orleans, US, the week before the 2025 Super Bowl. In the year since, the two organizations have collaborated to establish the fan-experience-focused partnership venture, but that’s only stage one, according to Lane.
"It's a [process of] evolution,” he comments, referring to the 12-year term. “What you're seeing from us today is learnings. You will see a different execution, and we will start to try different messaging, and different ways that we can resonate with fans, in season two.”
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By GlobalDataNorys and Lane spoke to Sportcal (GlobalData Sport) on the day of the Manchester City fixture, sitting in a corporate suite in front of a backdrop of Sports Illustrated cover images. The magazine, still in print in physical form, is owned by Authentic Brands Group, with SIT holding that brand under license. And it is the leveraging of that brand that is the cornerstone of SIT’s international growth strategy.
Bringing Sports Illustrated to a new market
Sports Illustrated remains one of the most prominent media brands in the US, which SIT has leveraged over the past few years into partnerships with a number of prominent NFL American football and soccer franchises. In 2025, SIT made the jump to the European market, sponsoring NFL games in Europe, while also entering the English soccer market, first with second-tier side Birmingham City, and then Tottenham Hotspur. While the Sports Illustrated brand may be new to UK consumers, both Lane and Norys hope that decades of brand equity built up in the US can translate to a new market.
“I think that's our opportunity,” Lane says. “When a Spurs fan walks in here, this may be new, right? You may have heard of the brand, and you may have seen a cover, and you may have seen some of our content, but for the first time, you're really getting exposed to how important we are to the world of sports for a generation. It reintroduces Sports Illustrated to an entire global audience that we don't yet have a real connection with.”
A key factor, he expands, is authenticity. The presentation of Sports Illustrated across the stand is a sports-first framing of the brand. After all, SIT’s partnership is a fan engagement-centric deal, and not a ticketing partnership. This, it is hoped, will lend itself to a more positive association with Sports Illustrated and its associated hospitality areas across the atrium than if the deal were solely a vehicle for the club to adopt the ticketing platform.
Norys comments: “You walk around, you experience Sports Illustrated. If it's a football match, the very next day, you're going on Sports Illustrated FC (Sports Illustrated’s soccer vertical) to get the content, because it's in your head. And then, the next time you want to go to an event, you're going to say, ‘Hey, I really like those guys, and I had a great experience in Club SI, and now, instead of going to another competitor, I'm going to go to SIT to purchase a ticket for another event.’”
“We want to leverage our partners across the Sports Illustrated portfolio to create awareness, keep us present, and then when they’re ready, [fans will] remember we can do what [other ticketing companies] can do,” Lane summarizes.
How do you service a major partnership?
As the inaugural member of ‘The Collective’, SIT stands alongside the likes of front-of-shirt sponsor AIA, kit manufacturer Nike, and sleeve sponsor Kraken at the pinnacle of Tottenham’s partnership portfolio. However, only a few months into a 12-year runway, this deal is one that will require constant innovation and reinvention across its term.
Norys reveals: “Our partners have grown quite a bit in the last three years, so we've had to build as we scale. So if you look at this [deal], there's at least probably three to four people that are just around Sports Illustrated. They may do other things, but there are at least three or four people who touch that [partnership]. Then they also have the next level of leadership across that area, and then even another one [above that]. And then we also extend into communications, marketing, and digital. So we do rely on other team members across the club. It's not just one person. There's a full, comprehensive plan.”
With a plan, and importantly, a full team in place to activate the sponsorship strategy, more attention can be paid to the minutiae of bringing the partnership to life. This means that once the base environment surrounding the East atrium is complete, further discussion can go into rounding out a full year-round activation calendar combining the myriad of sports events (the venue also hosts NFL, boxing, rugby, hockey, and more) and concerts that take place at the stadium.
“There are things that we'll end up doing that we haven't even thought of today,” Norys elaborates. That flexibility, in the pair's view, is key to activating around a deal at a stadium with such a variety of events.
For SIT’s part, the personalization of this partnership around Tottenham Hotspur’s Identity is a key factor when it comes to bringing the partnership to life, hence the iconic images from the club and old matchday programs interspersed between Sports Illustrated covers across the walls.
“There's no template that works everywhere,” Lane expounds. “I think Tottenham is the most special partnership, and there's still more coming for the fans of what we're going to do and just the experiences that we can help create that are on the way.”
The future of The Collective
With SIT tied up, there remain three stands at the stadium with slots in The Collective left to fill. Naturally, with Spurs’ position as one of the most prominent sides in the Premier League, it is sought after inventory. But with the naming rights to the stadium at large also up for grabs, it creates an intriguing question about how those rights may clash.
Norys: “What took us the longest period of time is identifying those rights and assets that we can give to a partner in The Collective, but also maintaining the ability to sell naming rights if we choose to do so. So in the model, we have the ability to still sell naming rights without taking away any of the value from The Collective.”
The Collective is sought after, Norys confirms, and the presence of SIT as the inaugural partner has only helped to drive more interest in the remaining inventory, proof that the aforementioned strategy to delay other negotiations in order to push through the SIT deal may have been the right choice.
“Launching with Sports Illustrated and having it be such an iconic brand with the long history that it has, we've already gotten interest multiple times from other different brands that like the idea of being part of something where you [already] have this iconic brand that's here.
“The first [partner] is really important because it allows that vision to come to life. Because even when we had our first conversation, we didn’t know exactly what this was going to look like.”
On the identity of the next set of partners, Norys is evasive, but does provide some details about which companies may soon put their name to The Collective.
“We've had some interest from automobile brands. We've had some from infrastructure development companies specifically. And those ones obviously are going to be more international, outside of the UK.
“We've had some from the technology [industry], and then some consumer brands, as you can imagine, because if you think about the South stand (a 17,500 capacity single tier stand designed as atmospheric cornerstone of the venue) and the platform that it delivers in terms of fan experience, You can actually see that whole fan zone area being a great place to engage with brands.”
It is clear that while this partnership, and The Collective as a whole, is still in its infancy, it is already reaping major commercial dividends for Tottenham, which will no doubt have been the plan years ago when the stadium itself opened. The GlobalData Sport Business of the Premier League 2025-26 report estimated that Spurs ranked firmly in the top six in the division in terms of annual sponsorship value, but some way outside the top four. With this refined top-tier sponsorship strategy, the club is making headway towards slashing that gap.
