Major UK casino brand Grosvenor Casinos announced it has agreed on a sponsorship deal with Fulham Football Club. Under the terms of the agreement, the leading casino operator is to become the main team partner of the professional association football club for a period of two years. The logo of Grosvenor Casinos will be displayed on the shirts worn by the team’s players for the 2017/2018 Premier League season.
The announcement of Fulham’s partnership with the gambling operator coincided with the unveiling of the team’s new home kit, which the Fulham footballers will wear for the first time on Saturday, July 29, when they face the players from the German club VfL Wolfsburg for a pre-season friendly match. The clash between the two football teams will take place at Fulham’s home ground stadium Craven Cottage.
Apart from appearing on the shirt-fronts of the Fulham footballers, the Grosvenor Casinos logo will be prominently displayed around the home ground stadium of the club via their new and improved LED system. Grosvenor’s logo will also be featured at Craven Cottage’s southernmost stand, commonly referred to by players and fans alike as the Putney End.
Grosvenor Casinos will also benefit from this partnership via the large-scale social and media platforms of the Fulham Football Club. These platforms will be used to attract the attention of both international and domestic audiences to the UK casino brand. In addition, the partnership agreement is likely to help enhance the interest towards Grosvenor’s extensive range of offerings which comprise a sports betting platform, virtual casino games, a live dealer casino, and an online poker room.
Henry Birch, Chief Executive Officer of the Rank Group Plc, which owns the Grosvenor brand, welcomed the partnership between the casino operator and the major UK football club. Birch sees this sponsorship as a great marketing initiative which would further enhance the awareness towards the Grosvenor brand.
Grosvenor Casinos is one of the largest providers of casino and sports betting products in the United Kingdom and has been in operation since 1970. The brand has an extensive catalogue which spans over 300 virtual casino games, various live-dealer tables, and a broad range of in-play sports betting markets. The chain also operates as many as 56 gambling establishments in the United Kingdom alone, plus two unbranded casinos in Belgium.
The partnership between Fulham and Grosvenor is one of the many sponsorship deals made by the Premier League clubs for the 2017/2018 season. The twenty football clubs in the League have reportedly broken their own record this season, generating as much as £281.8 million in combined kit sponsorship deals, which makes for an increase of over £55 million from the 2016/2017 season.
Many kit sponsors are actually major sports betting and gambling operators, such as the Malta-based company Betway which sponsored the West Ham Football Club with the sum of £10 million. Bet365, another well-known gambling operator in the UK, paid the amount of £3.2 million to appear on the shirts of the Stoke City footballers. On top of the sponsorship list sits Manchester United which collected £47 million from US sponsor Chevrolet.
- Author
Olivia Cole
