Newcastle agree training ground, kit sponsor: Why £18m KNOX deal is significant – The Athletic
Newcastle United have agreed a £6million-a-year deal for their first-ever training ground and training-kit sleeve sponsor in a major boost to their revenues.
KNOX Hydration — a South African sports drinks company, not affiliated with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the club’s 85 per cent majority owners — has bought the three-year naming rights to Newcastle’s Darsley Park training ground in Benton from July 1.
A more lucrative front-of-training-wear sponsor is still being sought and interest has been registered — KNOX will feature on the shirt sleeve, but not on the centre of the kit — as well, with Newcastle looking to rapidly grow their commercial income under David Hopkinson, the chief executive who arrived in September. This is the first sign of Hopkinson fulfilling the promise he made to pump-prime every potential revenue stream, with further deals set to follow.
Despite identifying land for a state-of-the-art training centre in Woolsington, near Newcastle International Airport, such a substantial infrastructure project is still multiple years away, given it requires planning permission and then needs to be constructed. Naming rights for what Hopkinson insists will be a “10-out-of-10” facility would be substantially more lucrative in the future.
In the meantime, Newcastle are expanding and refurbishing their current site, having already invested heavily in Darsley Park since the Saudi-financed takeover of October 2021.
Given Eddie Howe’s team will be based in Benton for the foreseeable future, a three-year naming-rights agreement worth around £18m ($24.5m) has been struck with KNOX. The deal starts in July and expires in 2029, which provides an indication about the general timescale Newcastle are working towards when it comes to moving into their new training ground. That appears to be a happy coincidence, rather than a conscious timescale discussed during negotiations.
In January, KNOX unveiled a partnership with the mixed martial arts brand UFC. Dricus Du Plessis, the former UFC Middleweight champion, is a co-founder of the sports-drinks company, which says it offers “clean, caffeine-free hydration”.
KNOX is keen to expand its appeal globally, so sponsoring a Premier League club offers the company an ideal platform to increase its visibility. On its website, KNOX Africa and KNOX Australia are active links, showing where the company’s products can be bought, while the company is set to launch in the UK this summer.
Why is this significant for Newcastle?
In a footballing landscape governed by financial regulations at Premier League and UEFA levels, Newcastle must pump-prime their revenue to have any hope of fulfilling Hopkinson’s stated ambition of making them “the top club in the world”.
Although the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) — which have limited Newcastle’s ability to invest on the field post-takeover — are being replaced by the squad-cost ratio (SCR) regulations from 2026-27, those will still pin annual revenue to expenditure. Newcastle have also controversially sold St James’ Park to another company owned by their majority shareholders, which aided their PSR position, but means the club no longer owns its own stadium.
Although Newcastle’s figures will have grown again across the current season, 2024-25 is the most recent year when financial results are publicly available for Premier League clubs. Across that campaign, Newcastle’s turnover (£335.3m), matchday income (£51.6m) and commercial revenue (£120.2m) were dwarfed by the average of English football’s ‘Big Six’ clubs (at £638.8m, £119m and £288.2m respectively).
Newcastle vs ‘Big Six’ revenue, 2023-24
ClubTurnoverMatchday incomeCommercial Income
Manchester City
£716m
£75m
£340m
Manchester United
£666m
£160m
£333m
Arsenal
£691m
£154m
£263m
Liverpool
£702m
£116m
£323m
Tottenham Hotspur
£566m (est.)
£126m
£245m (2023-24)
Chelsea
£492m (est.)
£80m (2023-24)
£225m (2023-24)
Newcastle United
£335m
£52m
£120m
Big Six’ average
£639m
£119m
£288m
Newcastle’s commercial revenue has gone up fivefold post-takeover from £21m, yet there is still a huge gap to the established elite — Liverpool’s accounts, published in February, showed their commercial revenue at £323m and was their biggest income stream. Many Newcastle fans have questioned why training-ground and training-kit sponsors had not been brought in post-takeover, but those fresh revenue streams are now being opened up.
Had KNOX merely taken up sponsoring the training-kit sleeve, rather than also assuming Darsley Park naming rights, the deal would have been worth substantially less to Newcastle.
The club are hopeful a front-of-training-kit partner will also arrive — talks have taken place with interested companies — and potentially for an even higher figure.
Both deals cumulatively would place Newcastle among the highest earners for training-ground and training-kit sponsorship deals in football, club sources insist.
Newcastle’s front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with the PIF-owned Sela is set to expire this summer, and the club is still exploring its options in what is deemed to be a challenging market, with more than half of the Premier League looking for partners.
A change in commercial strategy
Hopkinson’s reputation has been built on his ability to maximise revenue in North American sports franchises and at Real Madrid, and he is determined for Newcastle to extract the utmost income from every possible avenue.
Peter Silverstone, the previous chief commercial officer (CCO), left within weeks of Hopkinson’s arrival, with the CEO immediately implementing a shift in approach. Not only is the CCO position being replaced by a chief revenue officer (CRO), whose role will be to bring in as many partnerships as possible — interviews have taken place, as well as for other new C-suite positions deemed critical to business expansion, and an appointment is expected soon — but Newcastle are now aggressively pursuing fresh sponsorship deals.
Previously, the training ground and training kit have not had sponsors because Newcastle had a future rate in mind which they wanted to achieve and previous senior figures suggested they did not want to sell themselves short. Hopkinson’s view is that any unsold commercial space in the short term is a revenue opportunity Newcastle are overlooking. With income tied to potential spend within the regulations, and also a correlation between income and on-field success, that can negatively affect the budget Howe has to work with and the quality of team he can put out on the pitch.
Du Plessis co-founded KNOX (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)
“Is (PIF) the world’s richest owner? Yes,” Hopkinson said in January at a live recording of Pod on the Tyne. “But we’re in the self-help business, they can’t use that money under PSR, which has now evolved to SCR — we’re only going to be able to spend on salaries a proportion of what we generate in revenue.
“You combine that with the fact the Premier League has the tightest correlation (of any major sports) between wage spend and points earned… You want more points earned, you’ve got to generate more revenue and you have to do it on your own efforts.
“This is the revenue business and this is my equation. I’ve got to get a bigger bag for the club to work with, Ross (Wilson, the sporting director) needs to spend that effectively, and then Eddie needs to manage the squad that he’s got.”
Crucially, this fresh tie-up is not with a Saudi company. In 2024-25, 34.4 per cent of Newcastle’s commercial income (£34.4m) came from PIF-related companies — deals which the Premier League defines as “associated-party transactions” (APTs).
Although the Premier League has theoretically relaxed those restrictions following Manchester City’s legal challenges, UEFA rules over APTs remain more prohibitive. While Newcastle will continue to strike commercial deals with PIF-related companies, Hopkinson is also keen to diversify beyond those.
The theory goes that this “dimensionalisation” of sponsorships, as it has been termed by some internally, should provide Newcastle with a clearer pathway to top-tier revenues. Rather than merely strike so-called ‘easy-to-achieve’ deals with Saudi partners, Newcastle’s commercial team have been directed to actively pursue as many new non-PIF sponsors as possible, too.
Beyond a front-of-training-kit sponsor, Newcastle are also looking to bring in partners across different sectors, with other big-ticket associations expected, including naming rights for a new stadium in the future, should the club build one.
