Qualcomm splashes big money to promote Snapdragon PC chips on Manchester United's jerseys — logo reportedly costs company $75M per year

Manchester United FC Snapdragon shirt
(Image credit: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.)

It's not often Tom's Hardware reports on the sports world, but Qualcomm has forced our hand with a major advertising move: Qualcomm has made its Snapdragon logo the new front-of-shirt sponsor for Manchester United Football Club, the most popular football (soccer) team in the United Kingdom.

The Premier League team's claimed 1.1 billion fans will now be presented with the Snapdragon logo on all three variants (home, away, and third) of the Manchester United gameday kit. This massive claimed number is largely thanks to the popularity of Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the most famous athletes of all time, who played with Man United from 2003-2022.

A single football match at Old Trafford, Manchester United's home pitch, gets more exposure than a single Super Bowl ad, and making Snapdragon the front-and-center brand image associated with the team is a powerful move by Qualcomm. Neither Qualcomm nor Manchester United wishes to share how much the deal costs, but reports from Bloomberg indicate a price tag of $75 million per year for at least five years. 

Qualcomm's Manchester United partnership isn't new, having been a major sponsor of the football club since the beginning of the 2023 season. After a year of brand activations and awareness, Manchester United followers polled before the jersey change reported that more than 65% are aware of Snapdragon, and 80% of that group said they loved it. Qualcomm has pledged to increase brand activations and perks for Snapdragon Insiders, the official "fan club" for the brand. 

Sunny Grimm
Contributing Writer

Sunny Grimm is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has been building and breaking computers since 2017, serving as the resident youngster at Tom's. From APUs to RGB, Sunny has a handle on all the latest tech news.

  • Neilbob
    Ugh! As a Brit totally fed up of hearing about Man U almost constantly (they may be considered the 'most popular', but they've not even been particularly successful for about the last decade for anyone wondering), I was a bit depressed to see them infesting even this site. No other team in the UK has more column inches devoted to it, because reasons I guess.

    ---

    Okay, I confess I was just using this as an excuse to exercise my grumpy cynic muscles. I'm not really that interested in football (yes, we do call it that in most countries of the world :p ), other than minor attention to what my local team are getting up to.
    Reply
  • brandonjclark
    UNITED! UNITED!


    J/K, I've only seen a movie about soccer (which was very good, actually).


    Qualcomm has an AMAZING position open right now for those interested in getting GPU's working with "Snappy" SOC's.


    If you think you can do it, go for it!
    Reply