Sponsorships for the new football season
Bookmakers have been extending their sponsorships among football clubs for years and are present in almost all LaLiga clubs. Only Real Sociedad has listened to its fans and rejected agreements with operators.
Bookmakers sponsor 19 of the 20 LaLiga clubs. ©PixaBay/damonify
For the 2019/20 season, 19 of the 20 participating teams in LaLiga Santander will be sponsored by at least one bookmaker, some of them as the main sponsor. The only club that resists this trend is the Donostiarra club Real Sociedad , which conducted a survey among its partners and they rejected such agreements.
However, the first division is not the only one in which operators are gaining strength: many second-tier teams also have bookmakers among their sponsors . The latest signing: William Hill as a partner for Albacete Balompié.
William Hill adds one more club to its sponsors: Albacete Balompié
At the end of June 2019 it became official the agreement between William Hill as the new sponsor of Albacete Balompié . With this club, the British operator already adds seven among its sponsors and is thus placed as the bookmaker with the most sponsorships in LaLiga 123. Currently and until June 30, the club has an agreement with the bookmaker Vive la Suerte; from that date, it will be with the Briton with whom it will maintain sponsorship relations.
William Hill is the bookmaker with the most presence in the Spanish 2nd division with a total of seven sponsored clubs : UD Almería, Real Zaragoza, Elche CF, Unión Deportiva Las Palmas, AD Alcorcón, Extremadura and, the latest addition, Albacete Balompié. And it is that the second division has more and more importance and visibility and the British operator is taking advantage of this great vein.
Marathonbet will be the new main sponsor of Sevilla CF
On June 25, it was announced that the bookmaker Marathonbet will unseat the company Playtika as official sponsor of the Hispalense team . The operator's logo will appear on the front of the shirts, in the stands of the Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium and in the interview area during the next two seasons, with the option of renewing a third.
In this way, Marathonbet joins the long list of sponsors of the club formed by large companies such as Cruzcampo, Coca-Cola, La Caixa and Uber , and will show its logo on the front of the shirts next to that of Nike, who will be in charge of designing again the equipment that the players will wear.
The investment of the bookmaker amounts to 5 million euros per season. This exorbitant figure is the highest the football club has ever received, and far exceeds the 2.4 million euros it received from its previous sponsor, the mobile game developer Playtika. Without a doubt, this is one of the best deals that Sevilla CF has ever closed in the marketing area.
Marathonbet is no stranger to sponsorships, as it had already been the official sponsor of Málaga in the 2017/2018 season and Girona in the 2018/2019. In addition, it sponsors teams on the international scene, both in Europe, such as Manchester City, and in South America, such as Everton de Viña de Mar in Chile, the University Sports League in Ecuador and the Municipal and University Sports CD in Peru.
bwin will sponsor Valencia CF for the next 3 seasons
bwin will be the new main sponsor of Valencia CF. ©PixaBay/jorono
On Friday, June 28, the bwin bookmaker and Valencia CF signed a contract by which the operator will become the main sponsor of the club, thus taking the position from the current sponsor, the Blu phone company. The agreement, which it will mean an injection of almost 5 million euros per season for Valencia CF , far exceeds the 3.2 million that Blu was paying and will be in force from July 1 for the next three seasons, until July 2022.
The bookmaker was already one of the official sponsors of the Valencian team since the 2016/2017 season , but now he will have the honor of showing off his logo on the front of the club's jerseys, which will be designed by Puma.
The criticism from both the Valencian fans and the press has not been long in coming , based on the rapid proliferation of bookmakers mostly in the poorest neighborhoods of Spanish cities and the increasing number of people asking to be banned from this type of premises. Personalities from the environment have decided to break a spear in favor of the bookmaker, arguing that it operates in the strictest legality and calling cynical people who criticize sports betting, but accept other forms of gambling such as the lottery and pools.
It is curious that in New Zealand it is perfectly normal to play all kinds of lotteries or make the football pool, gambling in any case, and you have that double standard about other options in the same sector. [...] Bwin will sponsor Valencia [...] and within the legality, he will do his business. – Toni Hernández , sports writer at Deportevalenciano.com
Real Sociedad rejects the sponsorship of a bookmaker
A club of irreducible Donosti residents resists the attacks of bookmakers and their sponsorships. Real Sociedad is the only team of the 20 of the LaLiga that will not have any bookmaker among its sponsors.
Despite the fact that there was an agreement between the Basque team and Kirolbet between 2016 and 2018, there have been no bookmakers among its sponsors since then; in fact, last summer it rejected a sponsorship proposal of more than two million euros with Betway. The club chaired by Jokin Aperribay conducted a survey among its members in which they were asked if they approved of a sponsorship relationship with a bookmaker. The results were overwhelming: of 6,638 votes, 7,715 were against this type of agreement and only 841 in favor .
We said no to a contract on a bookmaker's table. For the kids, the players are their idols and for a player to be telling the kids [...] that they have to bet [...] we thought it was not the best way to educate. It is not wrong or illegal, but you do have to be careful of its abusive use – Jokin Aperribay , president of the Royal Society
Aperribay is pleased to preside over the only club in LaLiga Santander that does not have a sports betting operator among its sponsors. He is aware of the responsibility that the team has in Gipuzkoa, and that is why he decided to leave this decision up to the partners .
