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Wanderers are hoping to announce a three-year shirt sponsorship deal with a “national retailer” next week.
The club has been in negotiation with several parties since January, as their current deal with Dubai-based Service My Car reaches its conclusion.
Three new kits will be released next month – including a special charity third kit which will boast the name of Bolton Wanderers in the Community.
A stadium naming rights deal with Westhoughton firm Toughsheet is understood to be one of the most lucrative outside the Premier League – and Wanderers CEO is delighted to have clinched another profitable partnership.
“We have just agreed a three-year deal with a national retailer for the shirt sponsortship, which is great for us, and it takes us forward significantly,” he told The Bolton News.
“Service My Car have bowed out amicably and will stay on as a lower-level partner. They are a start-up, originally from Bolton, great guys to work with and they want to stay involved with a box and advertising.
“We have been working on this since January and, like we did with the stadium, really took it to market properly. We have worked with Manchester and London-based agencies in terms of a proposition and a proper inventory, which I don’t think the club has done for many years, the media rights, and the value behind that.
“We have had good meetings with five or six brands, had a deadline last week for offers and received three, so we picked one, signed terms and have now moved that on to contract status.
“We will be announcing next week, hopefully, and we’re really excited about it.”
Such is the cycle for Wanderers, Hart and the marketing team are already preparing plans for the 2024/25 kit.
Next season’s home and away designs were voted by supporters in an online poll, and Hart believes a distinctive third kit will also catch the eye.
“The fans picked the home and away kit, and they have picked a retro option for the home kit, which I think is beautiful, and then we’ll have a third kit – which we are calling our charity kit – which is a little bit ‘out there’ so maybe some need to brace themselves with what is coming with that one,” he explained.
“We will have Bolton Wanderers in the Community on the front of that one, and I think that is really important with the work Phil Mason does.
“Our front-of-shirt partner will put their charity partner on the back of that shirt, so it is almost embedded in Bolton.”
The success of this year’s shirt – which has sold out completely on a few occasions in the club shop – has prompted a bigger order from manufacturers Macron this time around.
“They will be launched during June, as soon as we can do with the schedule we have got, and we have upped the order considerably because we ran out,” Hart said.
“I think we had 11,500 kits across the range this year but we are upping that to about 16,000 to meet demand, so that picks us up commercially, from a retail point of view.”
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