Jersey Mike’s becomes EFL Trophy super-sub as sandwich chain serves up UK launch
Jersey Mike’s may not yet be a household name in the UK but the US sandwich chain hopes to change that by becoming the latest sponsor of the EFL Trophy.
The Subway competitor has agreed a five-year deal with the English Football League for title naming rights to the competition, which features clubs from the third and fourth tiers alongside Under-21 teams from sides in the Premier League and Championship.
In doing so, Jersey Mike’s is following in the footsteps of brands such as Checkatrade, Papa John’s, Johnstone Paints and Auto Windscreens as it prepares to open the first of what it hopes will be more than 300 branches in UK and Ireland in the coming weeks.
Aside from dramatically boosting brand awareness, the deal plays into company founder Peter Cancro’s affinity for sport, having been a schoolboy athlete before his former American football coach lent him the money to go into business.
Billionaire Cancro credits his success to “my youth coaches and sports that I was involved in… raising us up and getting the most out of us”.
“When I got involved with Jersey Mike’s, we got involved in all kinds of sports. People aren’t watching as much TV, but they’re into sports,” he tells City AM. “When we hire our people, we love hiring athletes. So, coming into this sponsorship of this league, it’s funny.
“It’s a nice fit for us. We sponsor college basketball, college football, National Hockey League, National Football League, a lot of soccer programs now. That’s just been part of our wheelhouse.”
Jersey Mike’s founder’s friendship with Leyton Orient owner
Cancro witnessed first-hand the platform afforded by football even outside the top divisions when attending a Leyton Orient game two years ago with his friend Nigel Travis, the former Dunkin’ Donuts boss who part-owns the League One club.
In the EFL Trophy, a competition with history of giving young players a chance, there is a degree of symmetry with Cancro’s story of starting the chain, aged 17, with a $125,000 loan from his ex-coach who had pivoted in the more lucrative world of banking.
“When it came time to buy the store – my dad was an auto mechanic and came from no means, like everybody else – I went over to his house on a Sunday night and he said, ‘I think we can do something’. And he did,” he says.
Five decades later, in 2024, he sold a majority stake in Jersey Mike’s to private equity giant Blackstone at an $8bn valuation – a transaction that precipitated the company’s push into the UK, where Subway has grown from one store to over 2,000 in the last 30 years.
The first Jersey Mike’s in London, on Argyll Street in Soho, will open on the site of an old Spaghetti House in early November. Cancro has promised to be there slicing the sub rolls and meats personally. Hundreds more branches are planned across the country and, later, further afield, but Cancro is not getting ahead of himself.
“First, the UK, and I’ve got my hands full. Right now, that’s garnering all of my attention,” the 69-year-old says. “If we do well here, it launches the rest of Europe, launches the Middle East. Everybody will be watching to see how we do.”