Ipswich Town FC is Sponsored by…Ed Sheeran’s Tour?

The English Premier League kicked off its season over the weekend, which means soccer fans worldwide are familiarizing themselves with all the offseason transfers, wondering if this is finally the year that someone unseats Manchester City, and also getting to know the new teams that were promoted from the second division. One of those teams, Ipswich Town (known colloquially as the Tractor Boys), turned some heads on Saturday when they played their first Premier League game since 2002.

No, it wasn’t for their performance on the pitch—the Tractor Boys suffered a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool—it was because of their delightfully quirky, unbelievably British jersey sponsor. Ipswich is rocking Umbro shirts that prominently advertise Ed Sheeran’s ongoing Mathematics Tour.

Ipswich is located in Suffolk, a county on England’s eastern shore—and, not incidentally, where Sheeran grew up. A longtime fan, and now part owner of the club, Sheeran is now literally part of the fabric of the team, on both the men’s and women’s side. His world tour, a nod to his five math-related album titles (“Plus”, “Multiply”, “Divide”, “Equals”, and “Subtract”), is a 144-show ordeal that began in 2022 and concludes with a 2025 grand finale in Dusseldorf. The tour has actually been the team’s front-of-shirt sponsor since 2021, but now that they’re back on the big stage again, people are taking notice.