Chelsea ‘expected to name’ newly created Infinite Athlete as main shirt sponsor — reports

Over a month into the new fiscal year, Chelsea remain without a main shirt sponsor (and a shirt sleeve sponsor, too, for that matter), but according to various reports filtering across the interwebs today, we are getting close to finalizing a deal for one.

As reported by the Sports Business Journal (sounds important), and various other outlets, we are “expected to name” Infinite Athlete as our main sponsor, and the agreement is currently “pending Premier League review”. Of course, we’ve been at this stage before with Paramount Plus, only to be told that we cannot do that as it would present a conflict of interest with the Premier League’s other broadcast partners. Oops! Hopefully we’ve done better due diligence this time.

If, like me, you’ve never heard of Infinite Athlete, you’re not alone. The company has been in existence for less than a week — at least under that name. Previously, they were called Tempus Ex Machina, but rebranded yesterday (!) as Infinite Athlete following the acquisition of biomechanical engineering company Biocore. (Can’t wait to find out how Clearlake were involved in all that, he added warily.)

Tempus Ex, a sports technology firm who have largely worked with NFL and college football teams, were already partnered with Chelsea in a smaller capacity, including for improvements to our online and streaming matchday experience (i.e. Match Day X).

Incidentally, Biocore develops “analytics platforms that allow teams, federations and athletes to understand and prevent injuries”, which might also help improve our horrendous injury record of the last few years, in addition to adding some dollars to the bottom line.

There’s no word on the size or length of this sponsorship agreement, but rumors peg it at around £50m per year, which would be higher than the £40m we had been getting from Three UK. That would certainly be great last minute business.

Infinite Athlete’s logo, which was clearly designed in five minutes or less, can be seen on their brand new Twitter account, or in this mockup below: