By Tom Parsons
April 21 – Stoke City have entered into a six-year sponsorship agreement with bet365 which will see the Britannia Stadium become the bet365 stadium, and announced plans to extend the ground.
The deal will begin at the start of the 2016/17 Premier League season and through this the club plans to be able to extend the stadium with a “filling in” corner.
An extra 1,800 seats will be built in between the DPD and Marston’s Pedigree stands which will lift the capacity of the stadium to over 30,000.
Bet365 are the current main sponsors of Stoke City and with this deal have also extended their shirt sponsorship for an extra three years. No figure has been released for the deal.
Bet365 has its headquarters in Stoke and claims to be the largest online gambling company with more than 20 million customers around the globe. It also employs a workforce of around 3,000.
Stoke City Chief Executive Tony Scholes said: “The Premier League is constantly evolving and to ensure that Stoke City remain as competitive as possible it’s important we explore as many ways as possible of generating revenue.
“As supporters are no doubt aware the Britannia brand no longer exists and it was important that we attracted a new stadium naming rights partner.
“The Premier League is watched around the world and bet365 are a truly global company. We are delighted that we have been able to reach an agreement with them over the stadium naming rights for an initial six-year period, along with the extension of their shirt sponsorship agreement.
“bet365 are taking over from Britannia and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Britannia and the Co-operative Bank for their tremendous support over the past 19 years.
“We also felt the time was right to redevelop the corner of the ground between the DPD and Marston’s Pedigree Stands. Planning permission has been in place for some time but it was important we carried out the work when we felt the Club was ready for an increase in seat capacity.”
John Coates, joint Chief Executive of bet365 and vice-chairman of Stoke City, said: “There’s no doubt bet365 has benefitted enormously from the global exposure our shirt sponsorship agreement with the Club has given us.
“We have been looking to extend our portfolio of sports sponsorship and entering into a stadium naming rights agreement with Stoke City seemed a natural fit, especially as the city of Stoke-on-Trent is home to bet365.
“We are looking forward to what we hope will be a successful future for both the Club and bet365 with both organisations working closely together.”
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