The eBay auction for a sponsorship logo on 2008 World Series of Poker chip leader Dennis Phillips will conclude early Sunday morning and, from appearances, looks to have been a huge success.
As previously reported here on Poker News Daily, the PokerStars-sponsored Phillips chose to forego taking any additional money from a company that wanted to place their sponsorship logo on his attire. While a premium company could pay tens of thousands of dollars to place their logo on Phillips – who is guaranteed to get plenty of airtime as the chip leader – he chose to auction off the space available for sponsorship to an individual or company and donate the money to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Since the auction began on October 16th, there has been tremendous interest in this auction and, perhaps more importantly, hectic bidding action. With the opening bid starting at $5000, it only took one day for the price to exceed the buy in for the WSOP Championship Event at $12,100. Other bidders then jumped into the mix and have generated 31 bids between the ten competitors and, as of this time, the price to beat sits at $17,433 with slightly less than forty hours left in the auction (it ends on Sunday at approximately 8:30AM EDT).
Both the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the WSOP are excited about the attention this has brought to a debilitating disease and Phillips’ philanthropy. “We are thrilled to be a part of such an exciting promotion that will ultimately help us continue to move towards a world free of MS,” said Phyllis Robsham, the president of the Gateway Area Chapter of NMSS and whom the entirety of the donation would go to. “The awareness and funds raised through Dennis’s effort will help us to continue our work for the over 6,000 people living with MS in our area.” World Series marketing and sponsorship director Ty Stewart echoed those same thoughts when he stated, “We are appreciative of Dennis’s efforts to encompass charitable endeavors and wish him and the MS society tremendous success on and off the felt.”
While there are some restrictions to the advertising per the rules of the World Series and ESPN and Phillips must feel comfortable with the advertisement, the number of bids ensure that there should be a nice donation that is made to a very worthy cause.
Not working out so well on the eBay auction front is the efforts of another member of the “November Nine”, Phillips’ fellow PokerStars sponsored player Ylon Schwartz. Schwartz, who comes to the final table on November 9th in the middle of the pack in fifth place, started his auction around the same time as Phillips but without offering to donate the funds to charity. He set the starting price at $37,500 and, as of the writing of this article, had not received any bids with the auction ending around 10PM EDT on Saturday night.
With both auctions ending this weekend, there should be more changes and we should learn who, or what company, is going to end up on Phillips’ and perhaps Schwartz’ sleeves come the final table. To check how the two auctions are finishing, you can check on Phillips here and on Schwartz here.