Bodog has been dropped as shirt sponsor of English Premier League football club West Bromwich Albion after just one season.
West Brom exercised its option to end the two-year deal 12 months early, and has signed a £3m two-year deal with Zoopla, which will see the property website’s brand replace Bodog’s on club shirts, branding around the home ground, official club merchandise and the website from 1 June.
The club had admitted back in March that it had been monitoring the situation with regard to the indictment in February of Bodog brand founder Calvin Ayre and several other individuals associated with the Bodog Entertainment Group on alleged charges of money laundering and illegal gambling, when questioned regarding the potential for adverse publicity for the club.
The club however insisted today that the split was by mutual agreement and had been an entirely commercially driven decision based on “the attractive new opportunity” offered by Zoopla. West Brom sales & marketing director Adrian Wright revealed: “Bodog were more than happy to accommodate our request to step aside and enable us to pursue a different avenue”.
Club chief executive Mark Jenkins added that the club had “enjoyed a wonderful relationship with Bodog”, while Bodog PR director Ed Pownall said said the gambling compnay had enjoyed playing its part “during another successful season for the club” and wished the club and the new sponsor all the best for the future.
Bodog founder Ayre announced in April that he had appointed famed father and son legal team Barry and Stuart Slotnick to defend him on the charges in the indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors in Baltimore on 28 February. The indictment alleges that Ayre, three other men associated with the Bodog Entertainment Group and their co-conspirators arranged the use of payment processors to pay US sports bettors over US$100m by bank wire and cheques and the wire transfer of more than US$42m from non-US accounts into the US to pay for advertising Bodog.com to US gamblers.
