We’ve reported much on the partnerships between some of the world’s biggest sports teams and leagues, and the biggest names in fintech - Revolut, Monzo and PensionBee just to name a few.

These collaborations are becoming evermore prevalent, and are being lauded for their strategic depth - as they provide sports teams with utility that tangibly improves internal processes, and gives fans rewards and benefits they can really feel.

However, aside from strategic depth, these partnerships have the same old core objectives - to reach the right audiences, to increase brand awareness, and convert the audience into customers.

With football being the most watched sport in the world, it’s no surprise that the media industry surrounding it is colossal - particularly in the modern day, where fans engage with the sport in myriad different ways, at all times of the day and night - not just on matchday itself. The football media industry is said to be worth a cool $19billion.

Football is the most obvious example, but this media ecosystem model is prevalent, and encompasses all sports with a major household presence.

This is where Funding Circle and Wise deploy their strategy - to tap into this lucrative media environment where if anything, presence can be greater, audience attention more focussed, and brand integration more natural.

Funding Circle’s partnership with TNT Sports was the first of its kind for one of the dominant sports broadcasters in the UK. The lending partner became TNT’s official business finance partner in October 2025.

It was the start of a deeply integrated cooperation between the two brands, with Funding Circle becoming a baked in presence for the live coverage of Premiership Rugby, and securing TNT’s IP rights so that they could produce commercials with the broadcasting team.

Their ads even appeared in coverage of huge international competitions such as the Premier League, The Ashes, and the 6 Nations.

This kind of wide-spread presence is one of the huge benefits of partnering on the broadcasting side, rather than the sporting institution side. Funding Circle are not limited to particular teams, sports or even competitions.

By partnering with a national broadcaster, Funding Circle are able to tell the stories they want to tell, in a space where viewers are well conditioned to be receiving brand messaging - all powered by significant resources and world class production talent at TNT.

Across Rugby coverage in particular, the brand is most present, and for good reason - their target demographic intersects significantly with fans of the sport. By focussing on the stories of SME owners, Funding Circle can make a real connection with the entire audience.

The partnership guarantees their presence on the screens of hundreds of thousands of SME owners - in a way that adds, rather than detracts from the viewer experience.

Wise’s partnership with Goalhanger, the media group behind podcasting phenom The Rest is Football, taps into the world of football fandom and finds easy alignment with the show’s audience.

In June 2026 they launched their International Football’s Ultimate Fan campaign, where listeners were encouraged to share their ‘unWise’ fan stories and win a $10,000 prize, with much additional fanfare - including branded Wise football shirts.

It’s not hard to see why an international payments platform makes sense on a show with a highly international audience. Wise free themselves from the geographical limitations associated with a single team, competition or fanbase.

However, this isn’t the only benefit from Wise’s point of view. The show’s format actively encourages engagement and discussion, setting the stage for clever brand integration that incentivises the audience to interact with the brand directly.

The famous faces of presenters Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards have an established dynamic which leans heavily into banter, humour and comradery, as well as their own personal followings and social capital, all of which Wise can utilise heavily.

Additionally, to a far greater degree than live sporting events, podcasts like the Rest is Football can be consumed in full at any time - giving Wise’s presence a far greater shelf-life. The show is the perfect material for being recycled into short-form social media content, gaining Wise thousands more eyes across a wide range of channels.

In short, compared to a traditional team sponsorship, Wise can reach more people, more organically, and for longer.

These partnerships expose one of the fundamental limitations of partnering with specific teams. Sports teams are blessed with intensely emotional and highly engaged fans, who show loyalty way beyond that a typical brand receives.

But this is a double-edged sword - studies show that team rivalries extend to the brands on shirts, stadium concourses and club media productions, meaning that favour curried with one fanbase is offset by a less favourable view from many others.

Additionally, partnering with the biggest teams in sports comes at an ever-growing price - deals often demand upwards of £50m in the Premier League for a 1-year front-of-shirt sponsorship.

Will we see more fintechs taking advantage of the opportunities sports media partnerships bring?

Tuesday night saw a remarkable set of 3 fixtures delivering an unprecedented 53 goals in the Fintech Football Championships.

In Division 2, there was a slug match for the ages as Verto and Capital on Tap battled it out to a 10-10 draw.

Meanwhile, Division 3 saw a scarcely believable scoreline as Chip – your wealth app overcame Modulr 15-10 in an absolute feast for the attackers on both sides.

Things were just slightly calmer in the other Division 3 clash as Hyperlayer secured a 6-2 win over Seccl - a result that puts Zopa Bank in the driving seat at the top of the table.

Is the Fintech Football Championships the perfect antidote to drab modern football?