Football’s Marriage With Online Poker Ends It’s Trial Run: What Comes Next?

During the early period of the poker boom, in the years immediately following Chris Moneymaker’s epic 2003 World Series of Poker victory, online poker hardly needed any additional marketing. People were flocking to the virtual felt, looking to become the next poker-made millionaire. The poker dream was alive and at its height.

Online Poker Operators Turn to Football Stars

Like with everything else, the hype couldn’t last forever, and after a while, online poker operators found themselves looking for advertising channels to attract new customers. Some of the biggest poker sites such by PokerStars, who now mostly caters to the European market after leaving the USA poker market in 2011, turned to famous football players whom they signed as their ambassadors. It was pretty much an experiment, as no one could say with any certainty how big of an impact these sponsorships would have.

And now, after a couple of years of the trial period, it seems that the football’s marriage with online poker has come to an end. For some within the industry, this wasn’t a big surprise, as they maintained from the start that this wouldn’t work. But, given how popular and high-profile some of these players are, one must wonder what exactly went wrong to deny the marital bliss?

Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr. Give PokerStars a Go

PokerStars was certainly the most aggressive regarding their sponsorship deals with sports stars, especially famous football players. The room signed Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the best and brightest stars on the football sky to be their ambassador. They signed Neymar Jr., another player with a huge fan base. The idea was simple: have these stars showcase poker in the official commercials, but also on their social media profiles, and their fans will follow in the footsteps of their role models.

On the surface, that plan sounds great. But, there was a caveat.

If you have Cristiano Ronaldo market a famous brand of clothing or perfume, it is easy to see people thinking to themselves, if it is good enough for Ronaldo, it must be great. So, Ronaldo’s or Neymar’s fans could easily start buying a particular brand wanting to be more like them. However, there is a huge distinction to be made here. Everybody wears clothes and uses perfumes; almost everybody drives cars these days.

Poker Isn’t Easily Marketable to Non-Players

Not everybody plays poker… not even close.

For a fan, it sounds perfectly reasonable to go out and buy a shirt of the same brand marketed by his favorite player. After all, he will probably be getting a quality product, even if the price is a bit steep. On the other hand, poker isn’t something you’ll just start playing. It seems PokerStars believed that fans would start downloading the software and the app left and right and jumping straight into action. This kind of a campaign might even work for an online casino, but poker is very specific. You actually need to know the rules and some basic strategy at least to start playing, and for most people, this is more trouble than they are willing to go through if they aren’t playing already. And, if they are, they probably have a PokerStars account.

PokerStars Ends Their Football Team

PokerStars did put in a lot of effort into trying to build their sports stars roster, and it is safe to assume they also spent a fair amount of money on the sponsorship deals. In the end, however, things simply didn’t work out the way they envisioned. There is no doubt that Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, and Ronaldo brought a lot of new players to the tables, but the conversion was clearly not what the company expected.

And so, a couple of months ago, PokerStars decided to get rid of their sports stars team.

They did it silently, perhaps fearing that a public announcement could cause some backlash and lose them players in the process. This is a legitimate concern since, if someone joined because he wanted to play Neymar, finding out he was no longer with PokerStars wouldn’t do wonders for their motivation. The room simply removed football players, along with other sports stars, from their featured players’ page, and that was that.

Do Football and Poker Have Future Together?

While this isn’t an easy question to answer from the top of the head, if PokerStars’ experiences and actions are anything to go by, I wouldn’t bet on it. Apart from the competitive aspect, which was the main selling point, these two activities don’t have that much in common.

At the same time, with PokerStars changing their business model and introducing more gambling-like poker variations, there could be a point in the future where a new partnership could be forged. If online poker becomes less complicated and more geared towards just having fun without being forced to waste too much time and energy, it could appeal to broader masses. If that shift happens, the marriage between football and poker could get another chance.