888.com Has Signed a Deal Giving it the Title Sponsorship of the World Snooker Championship

888.com, has signed a multi-million pound deal that will grant the online casino and poker room a five year title sponsorship of the World Snooker Championship.  The event, now called the 888.com World Snooker Championship, has been billed as the biggest snooker event on the calendar.

Held at the Crucible Theater in Sheffield since 1977, the championship attracts the best snooker players from around the globe, with the world’s top 16 players joined by 16 additional players that have made it through the qualifying rounds.

888.com replaces the tobacco company, Embassy, as the new championship sponsor.  Embassy had also been a long-term title sponsor of the event.

Last year, the snooker championships were broadcast by BBC, the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster, and were watched by a peak audience of 7.8 million people.

888.com is eager to work closely with World Snooker and hopes to give the event a newer, more modern look and feel.  The online casino has said that they have “exciting plans to develop an innovative program of promotional events in order to build its association with the event and snooker fans".

In addition to becoming a sponsor for the Snooker World Championships, as of this year, 888.com has also become an associate sponsor for the other premier UK events in the snooker calendar including the Masters and the Grand Prix.

“Snooker is a national institution in the UK and is booming overseas, and we are excited to be playing a part in taking the sport into a new era,” said 888.com’s chief executive, John Anderson.

The chairman of World Snooker, Sir Rodney Walker, said: "This announcement comes at the end of a very good nine months for snooker. We have secured the future of the World Championship at the Crucible, the traditional home of snooker, we have signed a five-year agreement with BBC TV to ensure that the World Championship and the other main snooker tournaments remain on terrestrial television, and now we are able to reveal this new multi-million pound sponsorship."

“I believe this is the first step in a transformation which will change the commercial face of snooker in the future," he added.

IMG/TWI, the sports marketing giant, is responsible for brokering the deal between 888.com and World Snooker.

World Snooker also announced that the title sponsor for the Masters is SAGA Insurance, a provider of products and services  designed specifically for people over 50. 

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