Rugby Football Union Appoint PokerStars.com As New Official Gaming Sponsor
RFU APPOINT POKERSTARS.COM AS NEW OFFICIAL GAMING AND CASINO SPONSOR
LONDON, UK, 16 OCTOBER 2009 —The Rugby Football Union (RFU), the National Governing Body for the game in England, has signed up PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room and premier destination for the world’s top players, as its Official Gaming and Casino partner for the England team for the next two years.
The agreement gives PokerStars access to a wide range of benefits including player appearances and imagery, perimeter and programme advertising at Twickenham, tickets and hospitality for Twickenham games. Access to the stadium’s new state-of-the-art conference facilities and signed merchandise will also be provided as part of the agreement. There is also a unique opportunity to showcase PokerStars outside the Twickenham stadium on match-days in compliance with betting and gaming legislation.
PokerStars joins the family of household brands sponsoring England Rugby, which includes O2, Nike, Green Flag, Land Rover, EDF Energy and Emirates Airlines.
Paul Vaughan, Commercial Director for the RFU, commented: “It is always exciting to welcome a new partner to the RFU family. The growth of the game over the past few years has deepened and broadened our supporter base both at matches and through our supporter clubs and as a result our rugby watching audience is a perfect match for brands like PokerStars. We are looking forward to working closely with them to help them meet their sponsorship objectives.”.
Julia Tasker, Regional Director for PokerStars, added: “As a brand we are excited to be involved with the RFU. This two-year sponsorship deal will continue to associate the PokerStars brand to premier sporting events and talent, whilst also enabling rugby fans to interact with the world’s premier online poker room in live environments.”
PokerStars will become a visible presence at RFU fixtures from November 2009, providing engaging brand experiences for attending rugby fans. PokerStars will also be offering exclusive online tournaments in which players will be able to win tickets to all England rugby team matches, plus other unique money can't buy opportunities involving the England team.
For further information please contact:
Exposure
Andy Jephson
Senior Account Manager
(0)20 7907 7245
andyj@exposure.net
About www.pokerstars.com:
PokerStars.com is the world’s largest poker site with more than 27 million members around the world. It’s the first choice of the world’s top players with more daily tournaments than anywhere else with the best security online. More hands have been dealt on PokerStars.com than any other site, that’s over 33 billion hands dealt to date and more than 199 million tournaments played.
PokerStars.com operates worldwide under the license from the Isle of Man Government. .A recent addition to the PokerStars family, PokerStars.IT, operates in Italy under an Italian Government license.
PokerStars is in the record books, boasting the Guinness World Record for ’Largest Online Poker Tournament’ and ‘Most Players on an Internet Poker Room’.
PokerStars regularly sets the bar high, staging some of the biggest online and live poker tournaments in the world:
- The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) (www.wcoop.com) is the premier yearly online poker tournament series in the world. The 2009 WCOOP generated a total prize pool of over $51 million
- The European Poker Tour (www.ept.com) attracts the best players and currently generates the biggest prize pool of any poker tour
- The Latin American Poker Tour (www.lapt.com) unites the best players in South America
- The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (www.appt.com) does the same across the Pacific
- The World Cup of Poker, a unique fixture on the poker calendar that combines the online and live poker worlds for a team challenge that pitches nation against nation
- PokerStars is also the official sponsor of the; Russian Poker Tour, The Italian Poker Tour, The Czech-Slovak Poker Tour, The Australia-New Zealand Poker Tour
PokerStars is also home to an elite team of sponsored players known as Team PokerStars Pro – a group of established and up and coming players that travel the world competing in international tournaments. For a full list of Team PokerStars Pros visit http://www.pokerstars.com/team-pokerstars/.
About the RFU
The Rugby Football Union is the National Governing Body for rugby union in England and supports participants and fans from the grassroots to the national team
RFU Contact
Peter Thomas/Patricia Mowbray
0208 831 6791
Peterthomas@rfu.com
