I said beforehand that I didn't believe that Stobart would brand their trucks, why would they? No previous sponsor has shown any inclination to pay for the privilege of publicising the competition. That was before I knew that they wouldn't be paying for the naming rights.

Senior doesn't sound too happy about it.

[urlhttp://www.loverugbyleague.com/news_6915-senior-blasts-stobart-deal.html[/url

maybe the RFL looked at the long term picture and while it might only be 100 trailers this time a successful sponsorship might mean 200 trailers + cash next deal

stobarts make a lot of money by the selling of their brand to collectors and enthusiasts so if rugby league stays with the brand for a long time then the potential is huge

the betfair offer was only 50k per club but apart from the cash i cant see them publicising rugby league in any way near the amount stobarts would

Really? I go on the Barclays website or go in a branch I don't see big promotional adverts for football, or big adverts for Union on the Aviva website, in fact Aviva seem more bothered about sponsoring ITV Dramas.
Why would a company give away advertising space for free that could either be used to advertise themselves or be sold on the market? Effectively Stobart have sold the advertising space on 100 of their lorries to the RFL.

As I said before, someone on the VT looked at the cost of advertising space and it worked out significantly more than the BetFair deal. Around £900,000 of advertising compared to £750,000 in cash from Betfair, which also brings issues with Catalans and whether its good to have a gambling company as main sponsor.
I believe you mentioned that Stobart have over 2000 vehicles, for the RFL to have "a significant proportion of the fleet" it would need to be what? At least around 25%? Which going on rough figures is 5 times more than what we got so would value the deal at around £4.5m.

So is £4.5m achieveable for the RFL as naming sponsor for SL? Nope, its cloud cuckoo land.

For years people have been saying the RFL should market the sport better and "actually spend some money on advertising". Well they've just spent close to £1m and surprise surprise they're being blamed for spending money on advertising.

Him-Barclays Premier League is even on the mini statements you get out of their cash points and theer are plenty of adverts in branches.

Hmmm, maybe it's just the ones in York I've been in then, but even then I doubt that advertising equals the amount of money paid by Barclays to sponser the PL.
The point is though that why would we expect a company to give away millions of pounds if advertising space when there hasn't been a history of companies doing that for RL.

It will be interesting to see the first pic posted of KEV and where it was taken

The thing is this - times are tough, money isn't exactly flowing freely and SL isn't exactly the biggest brand in UK sport. This deal gets some advertising and exposure (it has made some news headlines already hasn't it?) and doesn't tie the RFL or SL to any exclusive package, so they can negotiate cash sponsorship deals with other partners. Which will be easier to do the higher the sport's profile is.

Thing is, if there was an offer of a million quid a season in cash on the table, I suspect they'd have taken it. But there probably wasn't, so they've been a bit more creative about it. Which is novel for the RFL and I commend them for it.

Well, if I wan advice on how to play centre at the top level, I'll ask Keith. If I want business advice, I'll probably look elsewhere.

In the same way that baboons hurl their dung at passing predators, can we expect similar if one of the Leeds trucks turns off at Junction 32 of the M62?

More pictures [url=http://leeds.rlfans.com/readarticle.php?article_id=1740here[/url....

Nice touch to get Garry Schofield to pose in front of the truck in 'just passing' mode.