Mike Ashley owned Newcastle United for a decade and a half.
In total, 15 seasons kicked off under his ownership.
That is, until the current Newcastle United owners bought the club, the Saudi Arabia PIF and Reuben family taking over from Mike Ashley.
It is quite incredible exactly what took place under the former owner, the shocking way he ran our football club.
This morning (2 April 2026), the latest announcement from the current Newcastle United owners fully exposes what was the most outrageous Mike Ashley move of all.
Today, the NUFC owners announcing a training ground sponsor, KNOX Hydration, that will be paying £6m per year, a three season deal that begins 1 July 2026.
Compare this to what happened 15 years ago…
Mike Ashley announced that he had arranged sponsorship of St James’ Park.
The then club owner, renaming our ground as the Sports Direct Arena back in 2011.
Not a penny was paid by Sports Direct for the naming rights.
Quite incredibly, outrageously, Mike Ashley claimed that this was him and Sports Direct doing Newcastle United a favour.
Mike Ashley claiming that he hadn’t been able to find any business willing to pay to sponsor St James’ Park and so out of the kindness of his heart, it would be named after his own business. He claimed that by renaming St James’ Park as the Sports Direct Arena (FOR FREE), this would now show potential future paying sponsors what the benefits would be…
Yes, no other stadium (football or otherwise) had ever managed to get a sponsor, so Newcastle United needed to provide this for free to the club owner’s retail business, so that then outside businesses would be able to understand how this could benefit them!
Things had got so bad back then under Mike Ashley and so many journalists unwilling to do their duty in calling him out, across the media we then saw so many going along with this outrageous nonsense.
The idea that no outside business would have been willing to pay to be the sponsor of St James’ Park, is as laughable as when Mike Ashley claimed for well over a decade that he couldn’t find a buyer for the club, Ashley having promised NUFC fans that he would sell Newcastle United as soon as possible after the revolt that followed him forcing Kevin Keegan out in September 2008.
The vast majority of major clubs were sold during these years when Mike Ashley claimed he couldn’t find anybody wanting to buy Newcastle United, indeed, some of those clubs were sold two or three times during that period. Mike Ashley only willing to sell the club when the game was up, once he had been forced to give away 10,000+ free season tickets when so many Newcastle United fans boycotted.
When putting together this article, I also found these quotes from the then Newcastle United Chairman Derek Llambias.
I had forgotten about them, after all, so much nonsense flowed during the Mike Ashley reign.
The (FREE!) Sports Direct Arena ‘sponsorship’ of St James’ Park had been in place for months when Derek Llambias came out with this: “Do you think me and Mike call it the Sports Direct Arena? We call it St James’ Park because it is St James’ Park. Naming rights is such a passionate thing, but it’s not about being disrespectful or taking away the tradition or history of the club, it’s about trying to get another Yohan Cabaye out there on the pitch. Do you think me and Mike call it the Sports Direct Arena? We call it St James’ Park because it is St James’ Park. But, to optimise our commercial side, we needed to get that in there. Other clubs do it. Mike is a Chelsea supporter. Everyone thinks he is a Tottenham supporter, by the way, and that upsets him. But if Stamford Bridge was changing names, he’d have a view. It will always be Stamford Bridge. The same goes for St James’ Park. But we have to do our best for the club and for the people who turn up to see the games”.
As I said, this was arguably the most outrageous Mike Ashley move of all at Newcastle United.
Both Ashley and his lackeys such as Llambias, actually claiming that this kind of thing was all about benefiting our football club and the fans!
I had also forgotten the bit about Mike Ashley being a Chelsea fan.
What we always knew for sure was that he was never a Newcastle United supporter…