The first tournament for
English Football League clubs to sell its
naming rights was the
Watney Cup, sponsored by brewer
Watney Mann which was played from 1970 to 1973. The 1970–71 season saw the
Ford Sporting League, sponsored by
Ford, take place for the first and only time, and also the start of the
Texaco Cup (sponsored by
Texaco) which was played until 1975. It became known as the "Milk Cup" and has since adopted the name of its sponsors in this same way. The following season in 1983 the
Football League negotiated a sponsorship deal with
Canon worth £3.3 million over 3 years.). The last major English competition to negotiate a sponsorship deal was in fact its oldest, the
FA Cup. The competition was sponsored by
Littlewoods for four seasons, starting in 1994 in a deal with £14 million. It was always carefully named, being the "AXA-sponsored FA Cup", or the "FA Cup sponsored by AXA", and never the "AXA Cup". From 2002–03 through 2005–06, the FA Cup did not have a dedicated sponsor, but instead shared the team of sponsors of
The Football Association. From
2006 to
2011, the FA Cup was known as "The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON" due to a deal with energy company
E.ON. From the 2011–12 season to the 2013–14 season, the FA Cup was sponsored by
Budweiser Beer and known as the FA Cup with Budweiser.
Emirates has been the sponsor since 2015, initially renaming the competition as 'The Emirates FA Cup', unlike previous editions. The Emirates sponsorship deal, originally scheduled to terminate in 2018, was later extended three times until 2021, 2024, 2028. ==Summary of competition sponsorship deals==