Wayne Rooney Joins Derby County

Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney has signed a deal with the bookmaker 32Red. Rooney announced that he will join Derby County, where he will adopt the 32 shirt in tribute to the club’s lead sponsor, 32Red.

The buzzworthy signing of the striker has been subsidised by 32Red via a record-breaking sponsorship deal. Rooney will be paid five times the average wage in England’s second tier, at £90,000 a week.

“The commercial opportunities this creates are widespread and significant… on the back of Wayne joining the club, we have just been offered a record-breaking sponsorship deal with our principal shirt sponsor, 32Red,” Mel Morris, Derby County owner said.

“I’m not sure that gambling addiction is as funny as marketing people seem to think. And in terms of the sophistication of their marketing messages, this lot make Paddy Power sound like Stephen Fry. There’s two things happening in the betting market: tightening advertising legislation in the UK and the opening up of sports betting in America. So, it’s all about playing nice with voluntary advertising codes on one hand and making as much noise as possible on the other,” journalist Richard Gillis said.

Football sponsorships help online bookmakers to differentiate themselves in the real world and build trust with punters. He concluded: “The normalisation of gambling might be football’s defining marketing legacy of the last twenty years.”