Nottingham Forest, the top-flight English soccer club, have announced US gaming operator Bally’s as their new front-of-shirt sponsor ahead of the 2025-26 Premier League campaign.
Under the deal, the Bally’s Corporation logo will feature on the men’s first team shirts, as well as around the City Ground home stadium for the 2025-26 season.
The team’s new shirts featuring the Bally’s logo will debut during Forest’s pre-season game against Italian club Fiorentina tonight, joining software firm Ideagen, which renewed its sleeve sponsorship with the club last month.
The 2025-26 campaign will grant Bally’s more visibility than usual, with Forest competing in continental competition via the third-tier UEFA Conference League (or potentially second-tier Europa League) for the first time since the 1995-96 season.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis said: “We are on a special journey - we are determined to keep achieving incredible things, and strengthening our global partnerships is an important part of this.
"As our club continues to thrive both on and off the pitch, we're looking forward to working with Bally's on a number of exciting initiatives, helping us to engage with our growing fanbase within Nottinghamshire and around the world."
The one-year deal comes as Premier League teams prepare for the incoming ban on having gambling firms as front-of-shirt sponsors from next season.
Clubs have been racing to secure lucrative front-of-shirt deals with gambling firms before the deadline, with 11 Premier League teams in the 2024-25 season featuring a gambling sponsor on their shirts. In the previous season, only three teams featured gambling firms on their shirts.
Bally’s replaces Asian online betting brand Kaiyun Sports, which featured on the men’s first-team shirts for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, ending a long spell where the club featured no sponsor.
After being promoted back to the Premier League in the 2022-23 season for the first time since the 1998-1999 campaign, Forest played the entire year without a shirt sponsor.
Boxt, the home heating systems and installation company, served as the club’s last primary sponsor during their promotion-winning season in 2021-22. That deal was valued at $1 million.
