B-Engaged Expands into North America, MENA and Germany

Founded by CEO Esen Shah and Spanish international footballer Hector Bellerin, the organization is driving its mission to connect brands and athletes with sports audiences around the world.

Shah will head Global Strategic Movement, a holding group involved from B, while the regional business will operate a global footprint with a local mindset. With global leaders such as Matthew McCarron, Jassem Osseiran and Jan Havertz, B’s global expansion comes after eight years of working with his Hyphen Studio colleagues to excel in the sports industry.

The strategic move comes as the UK office has spent years planning and delivering work in each market, establishing the brand’s credibility and presence. Through a local approach to global expansion, B’s team companies will continue to deliver better sports marketing campaigns through local teams in each region, which have won several clients.

B League affiliate Dach Dach has signed Brighton’s Fabian Hürzeler as the club’s first football manager. The DACH region will also embark on a collaborative partnership with Unidays, working closely with the UK headquarters to expand and strengthen its services in both sports marketing and communications.

In addition, the North American branch will work with the Middle East and Africa branch to promote OneFootball as a leading soccer brand in their respective regions, demonstrating its commitment to global growth and innovation.

Jan Havertz, former Adidas and football industry expert, joins as partner and Managing Director for the DACH region, with office locations in Germany. Matthew Maccarone, former Nike Canada Sports Marketing Director, will drive growth in the North American market as Managing Director. Jassem Osseiran has been appointed General Manager in the MENA region after a decade of leading media and gaming companies within the region. The group companies have already started work across each region with the likes of Esports World Cup, Fanatics, PUMA, Crocs and others.

Esen Shah, CEO of B-Involved Group, speaks of this vision:

“The strategic decision to re-invest and grow the business through a group structure brings a great sense of excitement within our ecosystem. For 2-years the components to this move have been planned out as we evaluated the industry and studied carefully what our next steps would be as an agency hitting its 8th year of operation.

Through our restructuring into engagement teams, our global philosophy of engaging brands, athletes and sports audiences will be identified first and foremost in key markets where the sports industry is growing.

Having worked with each of our business partners for a number of years now, I am extremely confident in our ability to deliver a hyper-local yet also global service to our existing and future clients.”

For further information, please contact Jordan Foster [email protected]

Rezzil, the world’s leading athlete development platform, have appointed B-Engaged as its lead creative and marketing agency.

B-Involved, which was selected as the youth service for the sports industry in 2012, will be responsible for strengthening brands on social media while providing content to reach and engage new audiences. They are a growing esports and gaming portfolio agency, following Guild, EA Sports and Call of Duty. It is an organisation that is constantly growing its esports and gaming portfolio, following in the footsteps of Guild, EA Sports and Call of Duty. The VR Sports platform has received recent investments from Thierry Henry, Gary Neville, Vincent Kompany and Michail Antoniou, before being featured by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a speech at FBConnect.

Before the big festive season, this agency aims to strengthen the brand of REZZIL's household consumer goods, Player 22.

"I am very proud to be able to work with Rezzil. Andy and his team have created a wonderful product, and we believe that it is the future of sports training. REZZIL recently, household consumer products. We have just invested in Player 22 and have just launched the release, and it is a very exciting time, and we have expanded the limit in the digital and social world. I am looking forward to continuing to provide (B-enGAGED CEO.

"I am very happy to be able to welcome B-Engaged as a full marketing agency. B-enGAGED and HIFEN teams fully understand the importance of the REZZIL brand and the vision of Player22. We. I'm very excited about the works they have created so far and are looking forward to some campaigns that will be announced in the near future.

Football influences millions across the globe, from children to adults. It has a role to play in society to educate and inspire. Whether that is raising awareness for issues in today’s world, or leading from the front in order to better lives.

Decades ago, we were blessed with some iconic football sponsorships. JVC/SEGA x Arsenal, Dr Martens x West Ham, Pizza Hut x Fulham, Candy x Liverpool, Brother x Manchester City – the list goes on.

Now, most of the club shirts in Europe are gambling brands. But why didn't we talk about such sponsorship issues until recently? Since the birth of B-Engaged, we have been in a position to work with gambling sponsors. Soccer has influenced millions of people around the world, from children to adults. Soccer is educated and inspired in society. Whether it is to increase awareness of problems in today's world or to move forward to a better life. In this blog post, I will introduce the hints why we think like this. This season (2020/21 season), eight out of 20 sponsors in the Premier League (PL) are gambling companies, almost all Premier League clubs have at least one gambling sponsor and are divided into regional sponsors. Some clubs have multiple contracts. At the time of writing this blog, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Chefield United did not post gambling sponsors on the website.

One of the exceptions, Sheffield United, does not display gambling sponsors on the website. This is because the owner from Saudi Arabia does not agree with gambling brands. When a soccer club ends a sponsorship with a gambling company, they often enter the market that presents the IP in a powerful position to find a new sponsor in another industry. I don't know if this is due to ethical / ethical values, or whether it is expected to change regulations that will forcibly diversify partnership models.

So why do they continue with gambling brands you might ask… Well, it’s all about the cash!

The bookmaker paid the PL team for the reported £ 70 million pounds. In this season's PL, Westham (Betway 10 million pounds), Wolves (MANBETX £ 8 million), Burnley (LoveBet 7. 5 million pounds), Southampton (Sportsbet. IO £ 4 million), Leeds (SBOTOP £ 6 million), Crystal Palace (W88 W88 6, 5 million), Newcastle (FUN88 £ 6, 5 million), and Fullham (BetVictor £ 3 million) are all gambling brands in front of the shirt, and Astonvilla (LT) and Westbrom (LT). 12bet) hosts them as a sponsor at 10m. In the EFL, the problem is even more serious, and tw o-thirds of the championship clubs use the betting sponsors to the front body of the shirt, and the sponsor paid to the EFL club from the gambling company exceeds 40 million pounds per season. At the DCMS committee, EFL chairman Rick Parry told the Diet that if the ban on gambling sponsors in soccer was imposed, it could be "miserable." The club has been planning such a change over the years. It is similar to the tobacco industry banning marketing communication in 2002. This is not decided overnight.

Why is this a problem?

Until now, we have focused on the front of the shirt report, which is just the starting point. In the last two years, I have seen the betting sponsor has exceeded the integrated level with the club beyond the stadium bowl frame that I could see. It is firmly positioned by the digital ecosystem of the club, which leads to immediately all users. After all, a catastrophic problem occurs here. The following is an Arsenal tweet ahead of the Southampton match in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Why’s this an issue? I’ll break it down:

1. The caption is like this. Provide OPT A-style stats to invite fans to bet 2 or more goals. Based on the stats of the past 10 games, we will compete with fans' dedicated love and optimism for the club.
2. SUPER BOOST "Direct CTA to bet using Twitter card function that promotes promotion.
3. There is no 18+ restriction or clear warning in the caption, but it is displayed in a very small font at the bottom right.
4. The use of odds, companies, and players that may indicate support for gambling activities.

Another example below is Tottenham Hotspur and the inclusion of their sponsor William Hill in their team positions. You can see Spurs adding their 18+ communication right next to the link where fans can place their bets in seconds.

A review carried out by the government showed that an estimated 430. 000 people in the UK are considered problem gamblers and that customers of gambling companies saw cumulative losses of £1. 44 billion per year in 2019.

What can football do to change?

Football impacts millions of people around the world, from children to adults. Football has a role to play in society to educate and inspire. Whether it be raising awareness of issues in the world today or leading from the front for a better life.

Clubs need to rethink their marketing strategies and differentiate themselves. But before that, they need to change their philosophy and mindset towards sponsorship. This is a bold statement for someone who has never worked at a club, but we have worked with several companies that fit these different models and have seen the mindset and philosophy of many clubs across Europe.

When talking about sponsorship, the first indicator some clubs give is their fee structure. In most cases, these structures have been built from previous sponsorship deals, some of which are heavily inspired by gambling sponsors. This is where the mindset needs to change.

The first step is for clubs to treat each brand as a partner rather than a sponsor (note that we call the contract between the club and the brand a "sponsorship" rather than a "partnership").

Clubs need to understand the impact that partners have on their fanbase and how they can work together and provide value. There have been some great examples of this in recent years:

• Liverpool partnering with Nivea & Quorn
• Stevenage with Burger King/Burger Queen
• QPR with FootballNet
• Arsenal with Octopus Energy
• Everton with Kazoo
• Manchester City with Xylem
• Watford with Football Manager

A change of model could be made by increasing partner categories to compensate for the loss of revenue from betting sponsors, while reducing entry fees to expand options for non-gaming industries. Clubs have recently expanded short-term contract options to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, but more needs to be done.

But more needs to be done. While such offers are on the table. Two of our players' clients have done just that, informing their clubs that they do not want to be associated with gambling sponsors.

This issue is not only for fans of the game, but also for the players themselves, who can fall into the traps of gambling brands operating in the sports world. B-Engaged client Stephen Colecker is campaigning to remove these companies from football, while calling for better support systems for those who need them.

Stephen says: "Gambling is a huge problem in society today. You can't get away from it. There are shocking statistics that show that 83% of some gambling companies make 83% of their profits from just 2% of their customers. I think compulsive gambling is a disease. I want football clubs to recognise this and actively ask for changes in the way they promote such companies. I'm not naive enough to believe that this single will solve the deeper issues, but it will certainly go a long way to encouraging change.

Overall, there is a lot to change in football and it all essentially boils down to a change in the approach to integrating brands into the sport. We who work in this industry have a duty of care and an opportunity to help millions of people around the world. We need to come together and help bring about change.