Out go Aviva, in comes £5m blackhole fear
PREMIERSHIP clubs fear they could face a £650,000 black hole in their finances next season if umbrella body PRL fail to locate a new title sponsor.
Aviva’s long-standing deal with Premiership Rugby runs until May, but England’s top-flight clubs have voiced concerns over PRL’s failure to name a replacement.
Aviva currently contribute around £5m each season but Premiership Rugby are understood to be seeking a deal from prospective sponsors worth £35m over four years amid a climate of stiff competition from within rugby and Premier League football.
With Six Nations and European Champions Cup title sponsorships also up for grabs, one senior Premiership official told The
Rugby Paper: “Premiership Rugby are talking to people but the challenge is there are so many rugby and football properties on the market at the same time, which is muddying the waters for the clubs.
“You have Premiership Rugby, Six Nations and the Champions Cup looking for sponsors and, for the first time in Premier League football, clubs can now enlist sleeve sponsors.
“That may seem irrelevant in rugby terms, but a sleeve position on Liverpool or Manchester United’s shirt is going to get you 50 times more exposure globally.
“That’s squeezing the amount of sponsorship money available and there’s massive pressure from club owners on Premiership Rugby to deliver because everyone’s done their budgets for next season and is committed to the salary cap.
“If you take £650,000 out of the equation from central distribution, a lot of people will be up in arms because it will affect recruitment.”
Champions Cup organisers EPCR are also under fire for failing to expand their sponsorship portfolio.
Our insider added: “Two years ago, EPCR had an offer from Heineken to buy the whole tournament again but they wanted to go down the football route of having a multi-sponsor model, which they have failed dramatically in doing.
“They only have Turkish Airlines and Heineken on board when we were promised there’d be five or six main commercial partners, so the centralised revenue is coming up short and that’s another source of anxiety to our clubs.”