Bwin Sign Digital Sponsorship Deal with Juventus

Online gambling firm bwin.party has signed a three-year digital sponsorship deal with Italian Serie A champions Juventus.

The deal sees bwin extend their sponsorship programme within European football, prostate having previously held the shirt sponsorship rights for Real Madrid, anabolics as well as digital links with Premier League champions Manchester United and Champions League and Bundesliga winners Bayern Munich.

Bwin have changed their strategy since sponsoring Real Madrid’s shirt for the past six years and are now attempting to tap into the online fan base of Europe’s biggest football teams.

Giuseppe Marotta, search Juventus CEO added: “This new partnership is a part of the internationalisation strategy that Juventus started. Being together with other top football teams in Europe makes us very proud and encourages us to continue our work with more and more passion.”

Director at brandRapport and sport sponsorship expert, Nigel Currie, said that bwin’s high profile in sport betting meant that they can take their sponsorship strategy to the next level.

Currie told iSportconnect: “Once sponsors have been involved in major programmes for some time the natural development is to use the sponsorship to increase customer numbers and generally sell more of their products and services.

“Bwin are now an established player in the betting market and their focus will be retaining existing and attracting new customers to bet with them.

“They will potentially have access to very big numbers of fans – possibly even access to databases – in three major territories, Germany, Italy and the UK.  Then of course there are the overseas fans for each of these huge clubs.”

More deals in the future

Additional deals with clubs in France, Belgium and Greece have been reported as a possibility in the coming weeks.

Welcoming the deal, Norbert Teufelberger, bwin.party’s CEO said: “We are proud to be partnering with Juventus, one of the world’s most successful and renowned clubs. Working with the greatest names in football is all part of our strategy to offer customers a premium gaming experience with great and unique content.”

The Juventus partnership will see bwin focus more on social media, social gaming, as well as  online and mobile integration then previous bwin activations.

The company announced that lower returns from sports betting and competition in bingo in Britain and Italy meant that their second-quarter revenue posting was lower than expected.