Ladbrokes To Sponsor The Masters

With only a few days before it starts, Snooker's third most prestigious ranking event has found a sponsor. The 2011 Masters is to be sponsored by one of the country's top bookmakers Ladbrokes and will be known as the Ladbrokes Mobile Masters.

"LEADING BOOKMAKERS LADBROKES are delighted to announce that they have become the title sponsors of the Ladbrokes Mobile Masters taking place at Wembley Arena in the New Year.

Snooker's longest running and most prestigious invitational event will now receive the six-figure backing of Ladbrokes as they look forward to their first sponsorship of a world-class snooker tournament.

Now entering its 37th year, the Masters has provided the British public with many of snooker's most thrilling moments and its roll call of champions reads like a who's who of the greatest names in the sport.

Fresh from the Alexandra Palace where the largest betting company in the UK continue to support the Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship, the firm will be crossing North London to Wembley to begin their sponsorship of the famous snooker tournament.

Running from the 9th to 16th January, the Masters features the top 16 players in the world, competing for a £500,000 prize fund.

Commented World Snooker Chairman Barry Hearn; "We are delighted to continue our long and successful partnership with Ladbrokes with this sponsorship of the Masters.

"With eight days of solid live and highlight coverage on the BBC as well as blanket live coverage in over 50 European countries via Eurosport, the Ladbrokes Mobile Masters is one of the most eagerly anticipated tournaments of the year.

"Over the years, I have worked with Ladbrokes on a range of sports and to now have them involved with the Masters, speaks volumes for where snooker is going."

Gary McIlraith, Managing Director of Ladbrokes.com said: "We're thrilled to extend our sponsorship activities with Barry Hearn and World Snooker.

"We are very excited by the re-launch of World Snooker and feel it provides us with a great opportunity to promote our mobile applications which are showing tremendous growth and continue to be a key sales channel for the future.

"It's also fantastic to be associated with a tournament which will help us reach a wide audience via BBC broadcast.""

This could be an exciting sponsorship for the game. As well as BetFred who sponsor the World Championship's, Ladbrokes is one of the leading bookmakers in the country with hundreds of shops around the country and being associated with such a well known name can only lead to good things for the sport and it should be a great tournament.

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