PokerStars agrees Lyon partnership
Deal sees Stars launch official poker tournaments themed around the French football club.
PokerStars has announced a media partnership with French football team Olympique Lyonnais which sees the operator become an official supporter of the club.
The deal will see adverts for Stars’ dot.fr site broadcast on Lyon’s TV channel and added to its official website, with advertising also appearing in the club’s Stade Gerland on matchdays. The operator, which appointed Rafi Ashkenazi as COO last week, will also launch a series of regular poker tournaments for fans, giving them the chance to win exclusive prizes such as hospitality tickets for matches, signed shirts and tickets for PokerStars tournaments.
It marks Lyon’s second partnership with an egaming brand, with the team having previously teamed up with Betclic Everest, to feature first Betclic, then Everest Poker on its shirts. The deal became the source of controversy in March 2010 when the team was banned from wearing shirts with the sponsor logo for a Champions League tie with Real Madrid due to French laws banning gambling advertising, prior to the introduction of egaming legislation, even though the match was played in Spain.
The sponsorship deal came to an end in 2012, around the same time as the operator terminated similar deals with Olympique Marseille and Juventus, to be replaced by Korean car manufacturer Hyundai.
It marks Stars’ second foray into football sponsorship, after the German fourth division side VfB Lübeck sold its stadium’s naming rights to the company in a move which saw the Stadion an der Löhmuhle renamed the PokerStars.de stadium