As an outsider, I think this deal could be a good one for Quins. You say you are struggling to get local support? Well, you now have a new pool open to you of potential local supporters and through it a channel to communicate to a greater local base (given that universities are always putting themselves about). If you feature on their homepage as a regular item that won't be a bad thing at all and in fact would give Quins better exposure through their shirt sponsor than Saints gets through theirs!

I think your board may have been quite clever, tying in sponsorship with spreading the word about the club. Just because St Mary's isn't (yet) internationally known does not mean the deal will not be of value to the club and I'm sure that will play out in time. You also have the guarantee that your shirt sponsor will not go bust midway through the season like Earth did (former Saints shirt sponsor).

On the point about Saints. Pilkington is actually global but (sadly for St Helens peeps) was taken over by a Japanese company a couple of years ago. It was born and brought up in St Helens and invented glass processes such as the stuff you find in your car windscreens and at present self-cleaning glass (the Activ part of it). However, until it became part of a Japanese conglomorate, Pilks didn't once sponsor Saints. It employed half the town at one time but opted to support union (including running the Pilkington Cup). I think Pilks Activ is the biggest sponsor we have ever had. Most of our sponsors are local and most of our shirt sponsors have been local (couldn't get much more local than, say, St Helens Glass! Before that went bust, obviously)

Personally, I'd prefer St Mary's College to Mecca Bingo anyday! Even if Mecca is recognised nationally. Imagine having [ithat[/i logo on your shirts? And the capacity for pi$$ taking is just, well, unlimited!

An astute post

So now its in their relative markets and if we haven't heard of them they are still small businesses even if they turn over millions?

And curse the businesses advertising on a Super League club's jersey in a bid to gain a bit of exposure.

There have been some very interesting points raised in this thread, especially by SaintsFan, and i'm starting to see some benefits. Tts just a shame ExiledInHull has to spoil it with such drivel.

I'd be amazed if any money is involved in this, but it is still better than nothing and not a bad move in the circumstances. Let's look at the facts, recent main sponsors, going back from most recent:

Sports Cafe / Workplace - owner's businesses, just a way of getting his investment counted as turnover for the salary cap calculations, and him getting some value out of something he really did for altruistic reasons
Streetwise sports - just a way of getting a better kit deal with Carlotti (same business)
Bartercard - a zero money down deal, pure contra arrangement with Barterpoint credits given... no doubt done because we couldn't sell the sponsorship that season
Virgin - owner's business, again on the shirt in the absence of ability to sell to anyone else, then latterly as part of the exit deal David Hughes cut with Richard Branson, with a thick dollop of "do the right thing" guilt
Fosters - probably a small cash sum plus beer supply contra arrangement, aimed at a market (Aussies) that wasn't really in our audience in any great way

So, long and the short of it? Looks like Quins/Broncos have not been able to sell the main sponsorship for a decade or so, so pretty unrealistic to expect an improvement on that now...

If you can't sell something, give it away in exchange for some value, whether charity (PR goodwill) or a local community organisation (longer-term development synergies). Maybe we might think of some better person to give the free slot to, but then we're not the ones having to get our backsides into gear to sort it out, so seems fair enough result to me all things considered - well done to the club.

We want to be recognised as part of the Twickenham community don't we, well this is a pretty good way as far as I'm concerned. If no one will pay us some serious money that will impact on our finances then this is the next best option so Im with HKB.
I guess this is a permanent way of putting our profile in the face of a lot of people in the community - a lot of locals usually work at the Uni Im sure, so local awareness and discussion is increased. Small steps folks are better than none at all

As my Economics lecturer kept telling me, think of the multiplier effect on the market you reach. In RL terms if we get maybe 200 people working and associated with St Mary's aware that they have a Rugby League team on their doorstep. Some may come but they will all make conversation with other contacts in the pub etc. and local awareness will increase manyfold. As someone posted on another thread, an Aussie guy who lived in Twickenham didn't know we played RL here until he saw it advertised when passing the ground. We need to make everyone in Twickenham & Richmond especially aware that we are here on their doorstep and that we have great entertainment on offer

Uhm Where is your name in Kendas post - I can't see it

Didn't people start moaning when we didn't have a shirt sponser?
Now we have one, get over it.
Some people were saying that they wanted to get St Marys to sponser us when we orginially talked about it, iirc.
Its not a big business making millions, at least we don't have bare shirts now

Didn't people start moaning when we didn't have a shirt sponser?
Now we have one, get over it.
Some people were saying that they wanted to get St Marys to sponser us when we orginially talked about it, iirc.
Its not a big business making millions, at least we don't have bare shirts now

deja VU

It would, but then so would a deal with Heinz, Coca Cola and Cadbury but if they didn't want to do a deal then there is nothing we can do about it.

I think the shirt deal is very positive. New place to be a part of , new people to deal with, young people/students who may come along out of interest and become life long fans (optimistic but it could happen), they could then bring friends etc Lets suck it and see - we have nothing to loose and a lot to gain. The options each businesses have to offer can only be positive.

St Mary's College the new Leeds Carnegie.

Seriously though I think it could be good for you. I suspect there's not a lot of money in it, but it might bring some specialist input in terms of sports science, etc.. in an in kind way.

LISTER

To someone not educated in sports sponsorship, what i wrote would be drivel!

Of course, Coca Cola, Heinz, Sky, GlaxoSmithKline, Vodafone will never sponsor Quins.

i.e. £500,000 for 5,000 fans - not good maths or business sense!

It's a step in the right direction.

I found out about it from one of the London rags I picked up on a train this evening, they described it as ground breaking (probably cut and pasted from the PR - but still positive). Elsewhere there's a story about Sarries imploding so the owners can turn it into Sith Efrica Exiles RUFC, so things could be much, much worse.

SaintsFan

I don't know how far your history goes back with Saints, do you remember the trial of underground heating? this was going to be financed by Pilkington's but where a small time thinking Board frightened of losing power (and most of them had a Union background from Cowley and Moss Lane)

Are you fully aware how many times Pilkington in the days of Sir Harry may have wanted more involvement? - I was also born in the town and just live outside now, but I have supported the London Club since my teens because of small time thinking.

J

I think this is a good thing. It ties the club into the community and a recognised sporting establishment. I believe it will help raise the profile of both organisations.

Some people just arent happy (mentioning no names!)

Don't quite see why Lister and Gutterfax are getting so hot and bothered over this. Up until this week we were the only SL team without a major shirt sponsor, which I think spoke volumes about the current situation, both economic and administrative, at the club.

As has been mentioned by other posters, this is much better than nothing. We've got good recent links with St Mary's College, particularly through their sporting prowess and crucially it is a local institution. The club always seem to be getting flak for not developing things in the Richmond area but here's evidence of that.

In the current climate sponsors are pulling out left, right, and centre - we were never going to get a blue-chip sponsor, and St Mary's demonstrates a commitment to academia and the local area which I think is worthy and good PR. This might not be a long-term tie-up but at least its a positive arrangement for both parties and doesn't leave us odd-one-out amongst the SL sides as the only one without a main sponsor.

The tie up now brings in a new captive audience (students)
It could provide a supply line to the Academy sqauds (adding another tier)
It could sway borderline Union players to turn to league from a younger age.

Ok.....my original posts are still available to view as I can't delete Listy's "quote" posts and to be honest, a lot of the sentiment in those posts is still true, but have had time to crunch some numbers and mull over the pro's and con's of this deal and from a professional point of view, I can see the benefit to the club as a community awareness excercise.

As a Sales and marketing professional, I understand that the club isn't the most attractive proposition and accept that any sponsor on the jersey is better than none. What upsets me and I know a lot of work was done to even get TNT on board for the Manly game, is the percieved lack of commercial activity at the club. We have been Quins RL for 3 years now and have failed to attract any unrelated paying sponsorship, sold little in the way of match day, match ball or corporate boxes and have stagnated with our crowd figures. All of this points to us operating on a strict budget, with the obvious aim of creating interest through the community team.
The problem is, I have yet to see the tangible results (and by this I mean the paying spectators) at the ground. Last year v Wigan we donated loads of tickets to the youth of the London RL community and I haven't seen many of them coming back with mum and dad.



If you read the press release, the quotes from the club are from our CEO stating the community work done is great, Brian saying the same thing and from the head of youth development....no comment from the commercial team.

Community is all well and good, but if the Union lot decide they don't want us there anymore, it's back to square 1.....again.

Gutter

You seem to think that TNT are waiting with open arms and a blank cheque book!
What if they could only afford a one-off event?

There are 2 sides to this coin which some people just arent considering, its all well and good saying we play in fornt of '000s and have TV audiences of hunders of thousands, but if the Quins target market doesnt fir in with the company profile - they wont sponsor you!

I worked for Audi Marketing and knew that Rugby was a sport they didnt consider, because the demographic and 'culture' of Rugby didnt seem right.

They positioned themselves as engineering/technical brand leaders and a prestige brand.

Therfore they are active in Rally, Skiing (for the engineering/technical side) and alligned themselves with Polo, Man Utd and Real Madrid.

I do not for one second believe it is easy...if it was all we would need is someone to answer the phone and TAKE orders. What the crux of the problem is, is that we have (I bloody well hope we have anyway) contacted hundreds, if not thousands of companies with not 1 success. We sold 1 box last year, a fact that Boss Hogg didn't seem to worried about when he told us...in fact he smiled when he said it

. If we are going to sell 1 box a friggin year and do contra deals for shirt sponsorship, then I think we might be a bit top heavy in the commercial department where we employ 2 people.
TNT and Quins could have a mutually beneficial relationship if only the correct business plan was put together. We have 15 empty boxes per game...why not offer them as prizes, awarding raffle tickets when normal tickets are sold through TNT and by selling raffle tickets at the games? Prizes to the value of £10,000 in exchange for exposure in TNT to the value of £10,000......
In the current climate, the free mags and papers in london are having their nuts squeezed by advertisers. It isn't brain surgery, it's simply knowing how to deal with these people. As far as I am concerned, there is nobody currently on the payroll at Harlequins Rugby League with any experience of buying or selling advertising.

The varying degrees of experience as declared on the club site include a Bus Dev manager for an immigration company, selling exhibition space for BBC Haymarket, organising events at a waxworks and being a rock DJ



Sorry, but the cold hard facts are that times are hard and we are not in the least bit geared up to face the challenges ahead when it comes to the commercial side of the club.

OK

Im willing to do it!

But here's a very very cold and hard fact.
A hospitality experience where only enough people come in to fill 1 stand isnt very sellable!

Fact!

Agree.

Gutterfax has touched upon it but i'm not really sure so I'll ask you, the "expert". When it comes to the sponsorship of a main shirt, isn't it up to the club to sell it rather than be approached by businesses to "buy" it? This is what worries and disappoints me that no success has occured in this respect.