Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 58 (M)
Posts: 2432
PokerStars has further bolstered its links with the world of sport by announcing a new deal with French football team, Olympique Lyonnais. The sponsorship deal will see PokerStars branding adorn Lyon's stadium walls and open up a range of joint promotions. Additionally, PokerStars will have advertising space on Lyon's website and dedicated TV channel. The main benefactors of the partnership will be players on PokerStars.fr thanks to a schedule of exclusive tournaments offering VIP access to Lyon matches. However, the site's association with yet another well respected member of the sporting community should provide another boost for PokerStars' overall reputation.
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 10090
not sure jokerstars really needed this sort of promotion, since they have a stellar brand, and no one comes even near them in online poker...this sort of promotion is not cheap, maybe stars feel that they are doing poorly in french market, just wonder how much did it cost them- maybe buying another brick & mortar casino in lyon was a better choice
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
This seems awesome news for both Olympique Lyonnais and Pokerstars, but is the French market supervisor already aware of all this sponsorship scene? In Portugal there were many teams supported by a few sites, and then suddenly all of the rules changed and the poker or betting trademarks weren’t allowed to appear, although they could keep sponsoring them. It was a bit like “only online” sponsor, can’t explain exactly how. But maybe rules are different in France. I can’t see why shouldn’t a trusted company like PS have a sponsorship program, but in Portugal things wouldn’t be this way, at least by the way supervisors have defined the rules recently.
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
Kinda agree with pochui here. I doubt it is a move for profit, this one, rather one for publicity and nothing more. I cant imagine how much they have paid for, but i think such sponsorship dont come cheap.
Joined: Jan '11
Location: United States
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 3361
No matter this time of sponsership receives a tremendous amount of visibility to more then just the people of France. I'm not sure how the whole advertising business functions from a political standpoint in Europe, but if their football is as big as our football is in the public eye there's a great amount of opportunity to gain from this type of publicity.
I do acknowledge U.S. football is totally different from Europe's since we call it soccer. Still sporting events are big I'm sure as is here.
