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English top-flight soccer clubs Chelsea and Liverpool have ended their partnerships with 1xBet, a week after fellow Premier League 🎅 side Tottenham Hotspur chose to cut ties with the online betting company.
The two clubs had only signed deals with 1xBet 🎅 in July but have now ended their respective deals with immediate effect after string of allegations against the gambling brand. 🎅 These included taking bets on children’s sports, advertising on illegal websites, cockfighting live streams and promoting a casino featuring topless 🎅 croupiers. It subsequently suspended its advertising activity in the UK.
Both Liverpool and Chelsea had been contacted by the Gambling Commission, 🎅 the UK’s betting regulator, warning them any promotion of 1xBet in the country could be considered unlawful, leading to heavy 🎅 fines and imprisonment.
Official global betting partner is a significant sponsorship category for Premier League clubs and 1xBet held that designation 🎅 with Liverpool. Although no figures were reported around the Reds’ now-terminated contract, the club’s previous deal with BetVictor paid in 🎅 the region of UK£8 million annually, although that did include sponsorship of the club’s training kit.
Sponsorship
Staying in the Premier League, 🎅 Brighton and Hove Albion have signed a new sponsorship deal with Oliver & Graimes (O&G), the club's creative marketing partner. 🎅 O&G, which has been a partner at Brighton for ten years, has signed with the club for another two years.
Elsewhere, 🎅 the Football Association (FA), the national soccer governing body in England, has launched a three-year partnership with the Pokemon Company 🎅 International to help increase participation in its National Futsal Programme.
Spanish top-tier soccer side Valencia have named Skoda as a premium 🎅 sponsor until the 2024/21 season, replacing Alfa Romeo.
Dutch companies Gasunie, Shell Netherlands, Remeha, Stedin Group, Port of Amsterdam and Groningen 🎅 Seaports have teamed up to sponsor the Netherlands Olympic Committee (NOC), in the lead-up to the Tokyo 2024 Olympic Games.
Kosmos, 🎅 the international sports investment firm owned by Spanish soccer star Gerard Pique, has partnered with Sony Music to provide entertainment 🎅 at tennis’ Davis Cup finals in November.
Edgbaston, home to Warwickshire County Cricket Club, has agreed a new commercial partnership with 🎅 global torch and portable lighting products manufacturer Unilite.
The International Canoe Federation (ICF) have announced a two-year partnership with boat builder 🎅 Hody Sport, which will provide boats for the governing body’s development programme to support countries where the sport is still 🎅 in its infancy.
G2 Esports has expanded its relationship with Red Bull, with the new multi-year partnership covering all its esports 🎅 teams and content creators.
Saudi Arabian shopping mall operator Arabian Centres has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with Almeria, the second-tier 🎅 Spanish soccer club.
Media Rights
Scottish free-to-air (FTA) channel STV has partnered with pay-TV network Premier Sports to broadcast a new 24-hour 🎅 sports channel on their player, which will see live Serie A and Major League Soccer (MLS) matches available to STV 🎅 viewers as part of the deal.
Australian commercial broadcaster Seven has signed a new deal for FTA coverage of the National 🎅 Football League (NFL). Covering the 2024/20 season, Seven will be able to show live games each week during the regular 🎅 season, as well as the play-offs and Super Bowl.
Max TV, the Ghanaian broadcaster, has secured rights to broadcast English Premier 🎅 League matches on FTA TV during the 2024/20 season. The deal is a sub-licence from International sports rights agency Infront, 🎅 which holds the FTA distribution rights in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Thai telecommunications operator Advanced Info Service (AIS) has obtained a sub-licence deal to live broadcast the 2024 Tokyo Olympic 🎅 Games, the 2024 Youth Olympics, the 2024 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the Dakar Youth Olympics in 2024.
French telecommunications company 🎅 Altice will show delayed coverage of Uefa Champions League matches featuring Paris Saint-Germain and Olympic Lyonnais on its local channel 🎅 in each club’s city, at least 48 hours after they are broadcast on RMC Sport.
The Canadian Football League (CFL) and 🎅 The Sports Network (TSN) have reportedly agreed a six-year contract extension worth CA$50 million (US$38 million), according to Postmedia.
The National 🎅 Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) has agreed an exclusive three-year live-streaming deal with Amazon’s Twitch platform.
This season’s Caribbean Premier League, the 🎅 Twenty20 competition based in the West Indies, will receive significant global exposure with the competition set to be shown across 🎅 125 territories.
The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and Twitter have confirmed the last six matches of the Brazilian Women’s National Championship 🎅 will be broadcast live on the social media platform.
Infrastructure
Wembley Stadium has been awarded the International Organization for Standardisation’s highest standard 🎅 of sustainability for its Event Sustainability Management System (ESMS). It was introduced to coincide with the London 2012 Olympic Games 🎅 and is designed to help event-related organisations reduce their environmental footprint.
SmartSeries
The National Hockey League (NHL) has dropped Jogmo World Corp 🎅 as a primary technology partner for its player and puck tracking system, with ESPN reporting that SMT will be the 🎅 replacement.
Simplestream has built an accessible video platform and responsive website for Channel 4, the UK-based commercial broadcaster, and its online 🎅 coverage of Para Sport and the Tokyo 2024 Paralympics. The service has been designed to handle multiple live concurrent streams 🎅 and on-demand video, as well as including adaptive bitrate encoding (ABR) for up to ten profiles.
Sports data and technology company 🎅 Stats Perform has agreed a five-year deal with the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) for the rights to global betting video 🎅 and data across national soccer competitions including Superliga Argentina, Copa Superliga Argentina, Argentina Cup and Recopa Argentina.
Los Angeles Football Club 🎅 have become the first Major League Soccer (MLS) team to launch an official channel on short-form video platform TikTok.
