Ahead of Brentford’s match with Nottingham Forest tonight, the first time two teams sponsored by 888sport meet in the league, Chief Executive Mark Devlin took some time to sit down with brentfordfc.co.uk and explain some of the details of The Bees’ new main shirt sponsor 888sport.

“They have definitely got some clear ideas on how to activate their sponsorship,” said Mark. “They are likely to make our commercial and marketing teams earn their crust, but you do get a sense that it is going to be a real partnership.

“They have some creative ideas as well, I think they see it as more than just an opportunity to encourage our supporters to bet with them. I think they want to engage with the club quite deeply and we’ve already seen that with the free travel offer.”

Mark also thinks that this unique deal is one that can help Brentford progress in the future as well as the short term.

“It’s one of the biggest deals the Club has ever done. It’s fair to say that the last two years, with our previous sponsor and with 888sport, have been the biggest main shirt sponsors in the Club’s history.

“I’m not aware of a sponsorship deal where four clubs in the same division are sponsored by the same company. 888sport have decided to be quite aggressive in marketing themselves and have picked clubs based on geography, size of the support and availability. They are aiming for growth and that’s why they are a good partner for the Club because they will push us, we will push them, and hopefully it will lead to a longer term partnership where we can both be good for each other.”

Last month saw the release of both The Bees’ home and away kits pushed back as the Club and its partners needed more time to agree on the final designs. Mark admits that he was impressed by the negotiations throughout this process.

“It was nothing to do with adidas, the kit was ready to be on sale for early July. 888sport had initially asked for their logo to look a certain way in keeping with their brand guidelines.

“After we had our first partnership meeting, we all agreed that the logo detracted from the shirt. It would have been on a patch, it didn’t look great, and what was refreshing was that 888 recognised that. They also recognised that they didn’t want to be associated with doing something to the shirt that fans would disapprove of. So three partners came together to share creative ideas and work out a solution for everyone. It was good to see that they put their own branding slightly secondary and understood that they wanted to be associated with something positive.”

This season Brentford will play in six league matches against teams that are also sponsored by 888sport; Nottingham Forest, Preston North End and Birmingham City. These games have been named the ‘888sport derbies’ by our main sponsor and fans can expect a high level of engagement at each one.

“888sport have looked at them all, they want to make each fixture different in some way shape or form. They will clearly be very interested in being match sponsors for those derbies and there will be an assortment of fan engaging activities for each one.”

This evening’s match sees the visit of Philippe Montanier’s Forest to Griffin Park in the first of these derbies, one which Mark is looking forward to.

“It’s the third year of Championship football in a row and I think it will be the most exciting and most challenging of the campaigns we’ve been in. The night before Newcastle lost at Fulham, I was listening to radio stations predicting they would go the whole season unbeaten. I think we all now know how tough this division is.

“I’m looking forward to the game, it will be interesting to see both clubs sponsored by the same brand. More importantly I’m hoping we can get a win this evening and win the first of our 888sport derbies.”