AFL’s Richmond appoints Turnstile to value sponsorship rights SportBusiness
Matthew Glendinning
24 Jan 2020Australian Football League champion Richmond Football Club has appointed the Turnstile agency to value its sponsorship portfolio.
Richmond is among the top three clubs in the Australian rules football league by revenue with an annual income of A$79.8m (€49.4m/$54.5m) in 2018, behind West Coast Eagles (A$82.3m) and Collingwood (A$82.1m).
Its sponsorship portfolio is led by a joint-major partner and front-of-shirt deal with carmaker Jeep that is understood to be worth A$2.2m per year.
Health Insurance brand NIB is the other joint-major partner and brands the back of the shirt.
Sports brand and kit supplier Puma, financial service company Hostplus and smartphone case company OtterBox (branding on shorts) are second-tier Premium Partners. Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology is the club’s stadium naming rights partner.
Simon Derrick, Richmond’s general manager of commercial operations, said that Turnstile’s enhanced sponsorship valuation metrics were an important part of unlocking the next phase of growth.
“We are looking for data and tools that can fully capture the value we create for our existing and prospective partners. The recent on-field performances of our AFL Men’s team have grown the size of our membership and fan bases and further strengthened our brand.
“Additionally, we are excited by the commercial opportunities that have presented by the launch of our AFLW Women’s team in 2020. There is a significant amount of excitement and interest from our consumer and corporate markets for women’s sport and we need to ensure that we have the best information and insights available to quantify and articulate this new and emerging value proposition.”
Rob Mills, chief executive and director of Turnstile, said that “Richmond has been a major innovator in the AFL industry” and that the AFL, in general, “is very well run – with an average yield per fan better than anywhere else in the world.”
Turnstile clients currently include two leading English Premier League teams, Formula 1, DDMC Fortis (agents for the Asian Football Confederation) and New Zealand-based professional rugby league club, the Vodafone Warriors.
https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/afls-richmond-appoints-turnstile-to-value-sponsorship-rights/
