PokerStars sponsors Schleswig-Holstein stadium
Fourth division football club VfB Lübeck's Stadion an der Löhmuhle renamed the PokerStars.de Stadium.
VfB Lübeck, a football club in Germany’s fourth division, has sold the naming rights to its stadium to PokerStars.
Formerly known as Stadion an der Löhmuhle, the ground – with a capacity of just under 18,000 – now bears the name of the poker operator’s dot.de site.
According to a statement from VfB Lübeck, the deal runs until the end of the 2012-13 season with an option to extend it for a further three years.
It marks the first time that the club has sold the naming rights to the venue, which is located in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein.
PokerStars is the second operator to strike a deal with a German lower-league club in recent years, following Betfair’s shirt-sponsorship deal with Berlin-based team Türkiyemspor.
Schleswig-Holstein is the only one of Germany’s 16 Länder not to sign up to last month’s interstate egaming treaty at the German Prime Minister’s Conference in Lübeck. It’s draft gaming law was approved by the European Commission in May.