Tombola signs two-year Sunderland AFC shirt deal
Sunderland-based bingo site Tombola is to replace Irish bookmaker Boylesports as shirt sponsor of the city's Premier League football club from next season. The two-year deal is reportedly worth a seven-figure sum per season to Sunderland AFC
TOMBOLA is to be English Premier League football club Sunderland AFC’s shirt sponsor from the start of the next season, replacing Irish bookmaker Boylesports.
The online bingo site, which has its headquarters in Sunderland, signed an initial two-year contract reputedly worth a seven-figure sum to the club each year and will secure prominent exposure within the club’s Stadium of Light stadium.
Phil Cronin, Tombola’s chief executive, said the partnership will help the company achieve its ambitions, building on its claim of having more players than any other site in the space. The company, which was established in 1999, employs 130 people in the area and pays out more than £3m in prize money each week.
Sunderland AFC’s marketing and commercial director Lesley Callaghan described the agreement as “very attractive for the club from a commercial perspective”. Tombola already sponsors long-running ITV soap opera Emmerdale.
The bingo site becomes the first non-bookmaker to strike a sponsorship deal with a Premier League side. Other clubs sponsored by egaming brands include Bolton Wanderers (188Bet), Burnley (Fun88), Hull City (Totesport), Tottenham Hotspur (Mansion), West Ham (SBObet), Wigan Athletic (188Bet), Wolverhampton Wanderers (Sportingbet). 188Bet is also a betting partner for Liverpool FC, Aston Villa and Chelsea FC.
Elsewhere, in a sport that has proved valuable hunting ground for egaming companies, Bwin sponsors Real Madrid (although has pulled out of AC Milan), and BetClic sponsors Juventus,Olympic Lyonnaise in France, Lech Poznan in Poland and 13 Portuguese teams, helping it win Offline Marketing Campaign of the Year at the 2009 EGR Awards.
Sunderland AFC’s existing sponsor for the 2009/10 season, Boylesports, decided not to exercise its option to renew for a fourth season, having signed in 2007 in a deal worth £2.5m a season. In March Sunderland’s chairman Niall Quinn revealed that having discussed the issue of naming rights for the club’s stadium with Boylesports’s chief executive Lee Richardson, the company had chosen not to proceed as it was “feeling the pinch, like the rest of Ireland”. Quinn today thanked John Boyle, who “hung his hat on us at a time when we were still playing Championship football”.
At the time of commencing its association with Sunderland AFC the Irish connection was particularly strong, with the club managed by former Ireland international Roy Keane, and with chairman Quinn backed by the Drumaville consortium, which included Irish publicans Charlie Chawke and Louis Fitzgerald.