Chinese Online Bookie Yabo Scores Regional Deal With AC Milan

Serie A club AC Milan is set to boost its commercial presence across Asia through a new partnership with online bookie, in a deal starting from the upcoming 2020/21 season.

The three-year deal sees Yabo becoming the club’s official regional partner in Asia, a region where the football club claims to have the second largest following of any Italian football team in China, with over 106m fans.

The partnership will kick off with Yabo being involved in the club’s digital summer tour, which will see it create a ‘virtual fan village’ to offer exclusive experiences aimed at engaging its Chinese fans. 

“We are delighted to partner with Yabo Sports, who will undoubtedly help us to grow our brand and connect with our millions of Rossoneri fans across the Asian region,” the club’s chief revenue officer Casper Stylsvig said. “Delivering high performance, localised partnerships that focus on shared business objectives is a fundamental aspect of our partnership strategy”

Yabo Sports’ chief marketing officer, David Lee, added, “We are very excited to join hands with AC Milan, a club with the second largest fan base in China.

“For the next three years, we very much look forward to work closely with AC Milan to deliver incredibly creative sports entertainment experiences for our fans in Asia and beyond”.

With Italy imposing a domestic ban on gambling firms sponsoring sports teams the past year, football clubs have been circumventing this ban by  targeting global partnerships, namely Asia tie-ups to boost their revenue from this terrain. This has already been seen the likes of 10Bet hooking up with Juventus, HQBet partnering Lazio and JBO sealing a deal with Bologna FC.