Our partnership with Sky Bet

About our partnership

Our partnership with Sky Bet Launched in May 2024, and in our second year of partnership we are:

• raising an incredible £3m to support our vital work
• encouraging more football fans to learn lifesaving CPR skills
• placing more defibrillators in communities of most need.

Building confidence to use a defibrillator

As part of our award-winning Every Minute Matters campaign, we’re working with Sky Bet to help football fans build the confidence to act in a cardiac emergency. More than two-thirds of football fans worry fear could stop them from using a defibrillator if someone suffered a cardiac arrest, with many concerned about using the device incorrectly or making the situation worse.

To tackle these fears, football legends Roy Keane, Graeme Souness, Paul Ince, Iain Dowie and Julian Dicks joined forces to show that even the toughest personalities can feel unsure when faced with a medical emergency. Through training with the BHF, they are helping to bust common myths around defibrillators and encouraging fans to learn CPR and defibrillation skills.

Alongside raising awareness, Sky Bet is supporting the distribution of hundreds of defibrillators into communities across the UK through the BHF's Community Defibrillator Funding Programme, helping ensure more people have access to this lifesaving equipment when every minute matters.

Inspiring over 500,000 people to start learning CPR

In just under 2 years, Sky Bet and British Heart Foundation have successfully engaged over half a million people to start learning CPR with our free tool, RevivR.

Thanks to the huge collaboration and teamwork, the Every Minute Matters campaign hit its milestone. An incredible achievement for the partnership.

Heart Month

Throughout February, we worked with Sky Bet and the English Football League (EFL) to encourage people to learn CPR with RevivR, and to show their support by posting the iconic heart-hands gesture on social to #ShowYourHeart for Heart Month.

Tom Lockyer, Jermain Defoe, Glenn Hoddle, Graeme Souness and ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce all supported our campaign, as well as all 72 EFL clubs.

We also took the campaign to stadiums, where we re-scheduled kick off times by 1 minute across 36 EFL fixtures, highlighting our Every Minute Matters campaign.

Sky Bet hosted RevivR sessions across their offices in Heart Month, engaging all their employees with CPR training. Sky Bet also kindly donated £10,000 for every goal scored in February, which raised an incredible £514,000!

A hugely successful Heart Month!

The Red Boot

We kicked off the second year of our Every Minute Matters campaign with the launch of the EFL ‘Red Boot’ award.

This is a new one-off award for the 2025 to 2026 season, which will go to the best striker across all 3 tiers of the EFL. For every goal scored by the EFL ‘Red Boot’ 2025 to 2026 winner, Sky Bet will donate a huge £50,000 to BHF.

With just weeks remaining, the race for the Red Boot is entering its dramatic final stretch.

Funding BHF's vital work

When someone suffers a cardiac arrest, every minute without CPR and defibrillation decreases their chance of survival by 10%.

Funding from Sky Bet has already enabled 220 community defibrillators to be installed in communities of greatest need, with the aim of increasing the chances of survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. 

When we hear of a seemingly healthy athlete or young person collapsing suddenly, the cause is often a genetic cardiomyopathy. As part of the partnership, Sky Bet’s £3m donation will help power BHF’s groundbreaking CureHeart research programme.

The most ambitious research in BHF’s history, CureHeart could one day develop a cure for inherited heart muscle diseases. It will also help to keep RevivR free and accessible to everyone who wants to learn how to save a life.