The Andrew Flintoff feel-good factor spread from the pitch to the boardroom yesterday as the ECB revealed a crucial multimillion-pound sponsorship deal sportsmarketing.ie report
There were fears the ECB would struggle to replace Vodafone, the long-term sponsor that will pull out at the end of the year.
The ECB announced that Brit Insurance will fill the void left by one of cricket’s most generous backers. Although the ECB is thought to have been looking for about £6 million a year to sponsor the England team, Brit Insurance is said to be paying the same rate as Vodafone, which was nearer the £4 million mark.
It is still a substantial total given the tough economic climate. Flintoff’s heroics in the second npower Test match against Australia this month gives the Brit Insurance deal a fresh sheen. Much has changed since the start of the year, when the team were engulfed by a series of bad performances and the ugly outcome of the Allen Stanford affair. John Taylor, chairman of Sports Impact, said: “It is a buyer’s market at the moment so the ECB has done very well to find a good-quality sponsor at a decent price. There are not that many high-quality companies out there with the money to spend, so the competition for these sorts of deals is much reduced.
“This deal will have been done before Flintoff performed so well and after a terrible winter for the ECB. But an Ashes victory will cast the England team in a whole new light and Test matches remain a top draw in sport.”
Cricket stood to suffer badly in the fallout from the credit crunch, as big banks and financial services companies had traditionally played a key role in the sport’s sponsorship portfolio. The ECB may still face the prospect of replacing npower, the energy company that is sponsoring the Ashes series, and NatWest, one of cricket’s biggest benefactors. NatWest is part of the troubled RBS group, which plans to slash its sports sponsorship commitments by 50 per cent this year.
However, insiders say that npower is likely to renew its £4 million a year deal to sponsor Tests and other key games, while cricket’s long association with NatWest might yet escape the RBS cull because it has been judged to be so successful.
Brit Insurance is also an excellent fit for English cricket. Seen as one of the most prudent finance houses in the City, after it largely escaped the financial troubles of recent months, the company also pioneered one of the most significant sponsorship deals in the sport, giving its name to the Oval and sponsoring Surrey county cricket. That contract runs until the end of next year and is thought to be safe, as Brit Insurance is anxious to ramp up the association between the Brit Oval and England as part of the new deal announced yesterday.
