October 19 – Alisports, the sports arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has signed a deal with Happy Valley (HVAA), a Hong Kong first division club, to promote Alisports’ esports World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) event.
October 18 – Manchester City have agreed a deal with cashless experts tappit, who becomes the Club’s Official Events Cashless Payments Partner.
By Paul Nicholson
October 17 – A self-imposed broadcast advertising ban by bookmakers on pre-9pm ads could drive UK betting sponsors and their marketing money back to clubs and drive up the value of premium shirt sponsorship positions.
October 17 – Germany’s Continental Tires has extended its sponsorship with the Chinese Football Association (CFA) and its national teams.
October 16 – UEFA has diplomatically stepped into the debate over UK football’s traditional Saturday afternoon broadcast blackout being breached by saying it is in talks with the English and Spanish leagues following reports that online streaming service Eleven Sports is defying the rules.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 15 – UEFA has firmly denied reports that it has banned Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, from televising qualifying games in the disputed occupied territories.
October 12 – France’s Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) has expanded its deal with Italian car maker Fiat to include the sponsorship of the LFP’s Ligue 1 Conforama and Domino’s Ligue 2. Fiat has been a partner of the BKT League Cup for the past two seasons.
October 11 – Bundlesliga’s VfB Stuttgart is the latest German club to open up links in China, signing a five-year contract with the Chinese Super League club Guangzhou R&F to develop youth players and train coaches.
October 11 – Digital fan engagement and data capture specialists FanCompass has launched Check In, an engagement product specifically designed to digitally capture offline fan data.
October 11 – New sports technology businesss Fanbox has launched a behavioral marketing platform for clubs that it says will change the way they interact with fans for good.
October 10 – Brazil’s top league, the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, has agreed a $150 million international streaming deal with sports tech startup Fanfoot which will launch its OTT platform in 2019.
October 10 – Germany’s Bundesliga has joined forces with official licensee EA Sports to launch a new ‘Player of the Month’ award. Fans will vote for their player of the month on the EA Sports FIFA 19 website (bundesligapotm.easports.com).
October 9 – Arsenal have confirmed they are switching from Puma to Adidas for their kit deal from the 2019/20 season in a five-year ageement.
By Paul Nicholson
October 8 – Growing fears within the UK betting business of a hardline approach to regulating how bookmakers market themselves has prompted one leading bookmaker to put in a pre-emptive strike and call for an industry-imposed ban on TV ads before the 9pm watershed.
October 8 – Premier League clubs make up six of the top 20 most commercially valuable sports rights-holders worldwide, but are behind Real Madrid and Barcelona globally, according to the newly launched POWA Index, a real-time sponsorship evaluation engine.