How rich is SportPesa’s Everton deal?

It appears that there is no stopping the financial windfall currently being experienced within gaming company SportPesa.

The Kenyan betting firm is Wednesday morning expected to sign a shirt sponsorship deal with Tanzanian club Yanga, and this will be the third major sponsorship announcement from the company inside a week.

Last week, SportPesa inked a Sh225 million sponsorship with Tanzanian giants Simba SC and on Monday, they shook the world with news that they have agreed on a shirt sponsorship deal with English Premier League club Everton.

The company also has separate agreements with English Premier League clubs Hull City, Southampton and Arsenal, and locally with top dogs Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards.

The specific amounts involved in the Everton deal have not been officially released, but English publications and journalists abroad reckon that the deal could be worth up to Sh6.3 billion (£48 million).

SportPesa chief executive officer Ronald Karauri, however, rejects this figure, and he told Nation Sport that the exact amount is “approximately Sh500 million per year”, which translates to a total of Sh2.5 billion every year until 2022.

Whatever the amounts, the concern among many local stakeholders is that these figures leave a lot to be desired as they are significantly lower than what the company offers African clubs.

If taken at Sh2.5 billion, what Everton will receive every year is more than six times higher than what all the 18 teams in the SportPesa Premier League clubs will share amongst themselves annually.

And the Sh400 million annual shirt sponsorship with the now relegated Hull City is still twice as much as they agreement with Gor Mahia, which is the local club that receives the highest amounts from the Kenyan company in shirt sponsorship.
This, Karauri explains, is an unavoidable dilemma occasioned by the fact that the United Kingdom arm of the company is completely autonomous and makes independent decisions based on their needs.

“When we started up in the Kenyan market, people said that we were taking over all teams in every sport so we now find ourselves in a very difficult situation.

“Even as the UK office is an independent entity that is free to makes its own decision, it is important to note that that office always remits a percentage of their profits back here because this company was born in Kenya,” he said.