PokerStars continues German push by sponsoring Football Stadium

With the German online poker market starting to open up little-by-little, and with the current World Series of Poker Main Event Champion hailing from Deutschland, PokerStars has been aggressively marketing their site in Germany in recent months, with the expectations of a major poker boom in the country.

The first signal that PokerStars would be making a push in Germany came with online poker news sites announcing the signing 2011 WSOP Champ Pius Heinz (before he won the WSOP Main Event), and now comes news that Stars will be sponsoring the stadium of Bundesliga Team VfB Lübeck (in the second division) with the stadium now going by the name PokerStars.de – Stadion and der Lohmühle.

Stars presence in Germany is currently in flux, as Team PokerStars Pros from the country are currently not listed on the site, even though they include some of the biggest names in poker like Sandra Naujoks, the aforementioned Pius Heinz, and Sebastian Ruthenberg.

If you are fluent in German (mine is passable), or if you know how to use the Google Translate button, you can read the press release issued by the team at their website vfb-lubeck.de, where the details of the deal are given.

Amongst the major points addressed in the press release are that PokerStars has pledged to be very active socially with VfB Lübeck, including promoting their youth football leagues (which could make for an interesting site if youngsters are running around with PokerStars patches on their football uniforms).

The release also states that the deal will run through June 30, 2013 and PokerStars has an option to extend the deal through 2016.