Tottenham Hotspur announce Cinch as official kit sleeve sponsor

Until today, Tottenham Hotspur were one of the few Premier League football clubs to not have a sleeve sponsor on their kits. That changed today, when Spurs announced that they have reached an agreement with used car platform Cinch UK for sleeve sponsorship.

For a while now I’ve wondered why Spurs have waited to announce a sleeve sponsorship, and the only answer I could come up with was that Daniel Levy either hadn’t found a sponsor that was willing to pay his price, or he was hoping for something that might tie into the (still unsigned) stadium sponsorship deal. But Cinch UK is a bit of a weird one. Near as I can tell, Cinch is an online used car app, but not one with a big profile. At the time of this article’s posting, Cinch’s Twitter feed has less than 350 followers, including @SpursOfficial and @SpursWomen.

So why the change? Likely it’s just the immediacy of money. Tottenham notably are one of the Premier League clubs that are both most affected by the lack of income generated by the pandemic, and ironically most able to withstand it, but there’s very little money coming into the club. Getting a sleeve sponsor might simply be a way of getting some income and that was an untapped, low-risk, short term resource. According to the official release on Spurs’ website, the agreement is a multi-year one that includes the sleeves and some ribbon advertising on the stadium. My guess is that Cinch is a venture-capital flush startup company that is looking to make a splash with their new product. Signing a sponsorship deal with a prominent Premier League club is certainly one way to do that.

Tottenham Women will be the first Spurs team to wear Cinch on their sleeves when they host Birmingham at The Hive on Sunday 9a/2p. The men will also have the new sponsor when they play Marine in the FA Cup later that day.