Premier League Kit colors and sponsors

Colors, Patterns and Sponsors

Published in

TotalFootball

3 min readJul 30, 2018

The Premier League is about to begin. The on-field spectacle will no doubt entertain for the coming season. Off field activities in preseason however command an increasingly large portion of our “football attention” pie.

Kits are a typical talking point preseason. A number of Twitter accounts are dedicated to this topic, with some focusing particularly on the bad. I look at the 20 clubs competing for this years honors and dissect their kits from an analytical perspective.

Colors

In terms of first kit jerseys, Blue is the dominant color, followed by Red. Together they account for 70% of all colors represented. When all teams take the field, the colors line up as follows.

Blue is the most popular color, represented in 40% of teams. 8 teams wear Blue and in mostly solid fill. I’ve counted all shades of blue here. Two recent entrants to the Premier League (Brighton, Huddersfield) wear blue/white stripes.

Conundrum! Some clubs wear stripes so that becomes a bit arbitrary

It’s a bit like a zebra — is it white with black stripes or black with white stripes? PS: For correct answer (scroll to end).

Crystal Palace is our colored zebra equivalent. Since the shoulder part is blue, I’ve allocated it to Blue.

Red is the next most popular color represented in 30% of teams. Solid fill dominates here with black and white stripes added for variety. The remaining teams line up in white, yellow or claret with vertical strips or a single horizontal hoop. 8 or the 20 teams (40%) have a pattern.

Color Trivia

Looking at relegated teams from last season, two wore stripes: Stoke (red/white) and West Brom (shade of blue/white). Swansea’s first choice jersey was mainly white.

Looking at teams coming in, Fulham have traditional white/black, Wolverhampton add color (yellow) and Cardiff add to the blue selection.

Talking about blue: The last 5 Premier League winners have all worn a shade of Blue.

But, the color best associated with titles is undoubtedly Red. The top 3 successful clubs of all time, with 51 of 119 titles to date, all wear Red.

Sponsorship

The sponsors name is the one we see quite prominently and while it changes every year, it gives a sneak peak into types of organizations from where kit sponsorship money is coming from.

Following the trend from last season, this time also, gaming/betting organizations account for nearly half of all sponsor logos.

Transport (Airlines, Tyres or Cars) and Financial Services are the next most popular categories. It’ll be interesting to compare this with other leagues.

Suppliers

Just like sponsors, kit makers are often talked about. The big names in athletic wear are often associated with teams financially and of course influence the aesthetic and functional qualities of the kit.

For this season, the breakdown, is as follows:

Of the top 6 finishers from last season, Nike kits features for three this season (Manchester City, Spurs, Chelsea), with Adidas (Manchester United) and New Balance (Liverpool) rounding off the rest.