I wonder if these will be adapted for the international series as well? Will England, Australia and New Zealand (and A.N.Other) be plastered on the sides of lorries at the back end of the year (not this year obviously, but in the future)? International advertising is something we've lacked in recent years, and this could be VERY good for it... especially the up coming RLWC.

Me too.

Anyone know what Keith Senior is banging on about on Twitter?

Apparently Stobart got the sponsorship for free....

"Someone's not daft at Eddie Stobart. Free advertising from the 2nd most watched sport behind premiership football,what did RFL charge ZERO"



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stobart have utilised a full 4.4% of their fleet to this deal! hardly a massive commitment. Id be amazed if anyone sees one although their rarity value maybe of some cachet to lorry spotters. This is a great deal for stobart with huge tv exposure for an investment of bugger all. They obviously have a very canny marketing dept who seem to be able to get advertising for free. still the lorries look nice.

they haven't paid a penny. seems to me like they've gotten sponsorship of superleague and in return are giving us publicity on their wagons in return. Im undecided on it in all honesty. Could work out to be very bad for the RFL if we don't gain the publicity they hope.

stobart arent paying any cash to be title sponsor. Their 'payment' for three years as title sponsor is to change the livery on 4.4% of their fleet to advertise RL

Who's started that rumour then?

Probably a load of rubbish.

The RFL must have worked out their sums and must be pretty financially sound to take this gamble.

The lorries look brilliant, defintely eye catching.

He followed that tweet with one about Aviva sponsoring RU for £20 million over four years.

The bloke has no brain.

I mean, where's the fun in spotting an insurance salesman?

Some things to bear in mind when judging this:

[i'But the RFL say that their new deal will enable them to bring on board additional commercial partners as part of a multi-layered package, while insisting that the sport will not lose out financially.'[/i

[i'"I've heard estimates ranging from £1m to £2.5m in terms of the marketing value of this association," Wood told a news conference at the Eddie Stobart Training Academy in Widnes.'[/i

[i"The title sponsorship in previous years was all-encompassing, in effect a lock-out of other brands."[/i

"This is the exact opposite. This has freed up inventory that is available which has a commercial value for other blue-chip brands to come in and support Super League.

[i"You will see over the course of the next couple of months partnership packages supporting the Stobart sponsorship so that you will find that the sport as a whole is financially in the same position.

Stobart chief executive Andrew Tinkler added: "There is always costs involved in dealing with something like this. There might be cash involved further down the line."[/i

[urlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/16729988.stm[/url

It looks like the RFL will be able bring in money from other sponsors anyway. Plus, Stobart may also include a money deal in the future. This could lead to a better deal down the line and further options for the RFL in the future.

I would have liked to see more trucks kitted out though.

I think they are aiming to bring on board other sponsors in addition, and this arrangement frees them up to do that while offering something tangible to the sport.

You only get to sell the title sponsorship once, even if you are free to enter into other commercial relationships, it is the sports crown jewel. The RFL will doubtless point to the CL model although they steered away from a title sponsor, instead spreading the sponsorship to 5 or 6 exclusive but equal brands the RFL havent done this and the 'offical bookmakers, official beer et al will have nowhere near the same value. I hope the RFL used a decent agency for advise on maximising their commercial value instead of leaving it up to Dave woods to see what he could wangle. I suspect the latter though

WTF is up with these adverts in posts? RLFans seems to know how to maximise the commercial possibilities! there seem to be trigger words for ads

free gamble etc

First point untrue, second point - they do. Your accuracy remains impeccable.

Regarding the deal, it really does come down to whether you appreciate the value ascribed to free or associated marketing. I'm unconvinced - especially as a lot of division-wide marketing tends to be cack-handed, but lets give it a go. Past SL sponsors have given cash AND, to lesser or greater extent, associated marketing, right back to the Stones days. Tetleys and JJB seemed a bit disinterested whilst Engage did what they could but probably just didn't reach that many people on a day to day basis. Quite how the outcomes will be measured I don't know though...

I'd honestly not heard about this.

I presumed that the lorries were in addition to money.

Got to say it's sounds disappointing to me not to have received any cash but I'll wait and see first.

""The title sponsorship in previous years was all-encompassing, in effect a lock-out of other brands. This is the exact opposite. This has freed up inventory that is available which has a commercial value for other blue-chip brands to come in and support Super League." Says Nigel Wood...

what a load of rubbish!

If this was a cash+exposure on ALL of Stobart's trucks then I would say it is a good deal...no cash and exposure on such a tiny amount of their fleet is embarrassing.

No it isn't. It's disappointing that only 100 trucks are involved but that number may increase. I think it's a great idea. Sometimes the long view needs to be taken. Betfair at £750,000 pa (less than engage) is hardly going to set RL up for life, especially if that offer was all encompassing and limiting to the RFL and their future sponsorship deals. And besides, Betfair does not have the physical reach that Stobart has.

This deal could work out to be worth an immense sum.

I thought Keef might have been expecting a deal with EBay.

Don't worry, the Ebay employees will have the Super League logo on their cars soon.

I think it is the fact that there is nothing tangible in this deal that upsets some people. To be fair, all this publicity may amount to very little in the long run. It is a bit of a gamble. Plus, the RFL need to know how to take advantage of it, and make it pay.

Personally, I think it's worth the risk, as it will raise the profile of the sport enormously. It may bring in more fans, viewers and sponsors, which could more than out-weigh the 750,000 offered by Betfair, looking at it long term. This deal could possibly be a sweetener in order to get Stobart involved in the sport, with a view to a better deal, with financial benefits, next time (as alluded to by Tinkler)

I really would have liked to see a couple of hundred more trucks carrying the SL logos though.

Agreed, the deal would be so much better if there was, say 500 truck carrying the logos, saying that, is it not expensive to re logo a truck?

I'm sure I've read somewhere it costs something like £250 to sign up a wagon. So that's £25,000 at least!



Again, the net worth of the advertising could be worth a lot more than the BetFair deal. On top of which, we are now open to other deals that could net us more money than previously. You can believe it won't if you like, and that the RFL are incompetent or corrupt, but I'd like to think they know a lot more about this than you, and their previous record in getting the game's income up over the last 10 years proves that they know what they're doing.

But whatever makes you happy.

I'm not argueing Wellsy, I agree with you. Thinking about what other people have said now too, if the SL brad is dotted all over the country, we could and should get better deals from areas like 'official bookmaker of Super League' etc.

Taking into account the cost of the design, production of relevant materials and off road time it's probably not cheap.

It'd be difficult to take 500 trucks off the road at once (after all that's around 25% of their fleet) but they could always do it in instalments.

I still disagree with the concept though; sponsorships should be paid for with cash with the possability of added extras IMO. I'd have preferred maybe a discounted rate but I think we are loosing out on valuable cash.

In fact, looking at another website, a truck as large as a Stobart lorry could cost arond £595. Not exactly cheap to sign them up.

Like I said, for the RFL to get this much advertising just at the side of the motorway, it would probably cost them over £1m.

The issue doesn't seem to be the value of the deal. It seems to be people's values of marketing. But these are no doubt the same people that will moan that attendances are going down, or that no-one knows about SL, etc.

As for Keef, he clearly has no idea how much advertising costs if he thinks the RFL could get more advertising for £1m than they've got through Stobart.