How football became a sales kicker for watchmakers

“Gone are the days when you can just serve a pie and a pint,” says Mark Rollings, chief partnerships officer at Everton Football Club, as he explains how fans’ expectations of a sports stadium have changed over the past 20 years.

So when the men’s team kicks off against Brighton & Hove Albion for the first Premier League match at Everton’s new home at Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore Dock next month, some spectators will see what the club believes is the world’s first watch showroom in a football stadium.

Mike France, co-founder and chief executive of Christopher Ward, expects the “unique” proposition “will attract a whole host of new customers” to the UK watch brand.

The new 52,888-seat Hill Dickinson Stadium is expected to attract 1.4mn people annually to Liverpool through football, other sporting events, concerts and tours. Christopher Ward’s space, named 53° North in reference to the latitude of Liverpool, is in the Dock On 1 membership premium hospitality area in the West Stand. It features a by-appointment showroom similar to the brand’s existing spaces in Maidenhead, south-east England, and Dallas, Texas, plus an event-day dining area.

The showroom will be open for sales on non-event days, although watches will be on display when this area is used for pre-event drinks. The dining space will be for invited guests, plus paying customers on an event-by-event basis. The menu will include Swiss flavours, reflecting that the brand’s watches are made in Biel. Rollings says it “will feel like a real high-end, immersive, branded experience”.

Christopher Ward has been the Toffees’ official global timing partner since 2022 and released its second Everton-themed design in March. The Goodison commemorated the final season of the men playing at Goodison Park. (The ground will now be the home of Everton Women.) Limited to 1,892 pieces to reflect the year Goodison Park was opened, the edition featured a backplate made from a melted-down turnstile.

France says it sold out within 24 hours and 91 per cent of the customers were new to Christopher Ward. “That gives you insight into one of the ways in which this is potentially such a powerful relationship for us because it’s attracting new people to our brand, and maybe new people to high-level watchmaking,” he says.

Christopher Ward, which hosted a watch design workshop for young people with the Everton in the Community charity in May, has been the back-of-shirt sponsor for Everton Women since 2023. The upcoming season will be its second as the men’s shirt-sleeve partner.

What was most persuasive was the footprint Everton have in the USA

Although France is a life-long Evertonian, he says the primary reason for Christopher Ward’s partnership with the club is to increase global brand awareness. “What was most persuasive was the footprint Everton have in the USA,” he adds, pointing to their history of signing American players. (Tim Howard, the most-capped goalkeeper for the US men’s team, spent about a decade at Everton).

The US, a co-host of next year’s Fifa World Cup, is Christopher Ward’s largest existing and target market. The watchmaker will hold brand events during Everton’s participation in the Premier League Summer Series, being held in three US cities between July 26 and August 3. But France says the partnership has already “more than trebled” brand awareness in the US.

Watchmakers have long seen value in investing in football, despite players being unable to wear their products during games. Hublot, which was the Premier League’s official timekeeper for five seasons until the end of the 2024-25 campaign, is performing the same role at this month’s Uefa Women’s Euro 2025 championship in Switzerland. Its campaign features Norwegian striker Ada Hegerberg and Spanish midfielder Aitana Bonmatí. The Swiss brand is also the official timekeeper of the Dutch team Ajax and has Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappé as an ambassador.

Tudor, meanwhile, is the official timekeeper of Inter Miami CF, the US Major League Soccer team co-owned by David Beckham, a Tudor ambassador since 2017. Breitling signed current Premier League star Erling Haaland in 2022.

Lee Goldwater, managing director for the UK at Sportfive, a sports marketing agency that has worked with watchmakers, says brands can use football as a “platform to reach a high volume of people at scale”.

“And certain leagues like the Premier League are very international, so also allow you to reach and connect with people in markets all over the world for a single marketing investment,” he says. The Premier League says it is followed through the media by some 1.87bn people worldwide.

Goldwater says more brands are also recognising “the power of women’s football”, both in sponsorship of teams, leagues and events, and in brand ambassador deals for players. This brings more money to the sport and means it can “professionalise quicker”, he adds.

“For brands, as well as the reach, what women’s football is really strong at is helping [them] to communicate their values around female empowerment, gender diversity,” Goldwater says. “It shows their commitment to those ESG [environmental, social and governance] topics and is a very tangible way that they can show they’re putting their money where their mouth is — because they’re investing in these leagues, events and players.”

At Christopher Ward, France is expecting “quite a lot of tourist visitors” to the new showroom. The Liverpool City region, which includes a cruise terminal and an airport, attracts more than 60mn visitors a year. Now, some may be able to savour more than a pie and a pint at the football, with some Swiss cheese and wine.