I do like the idea ROBINSON mentioned. Traditional sponsorship agreements are going to be hard to negotiate, I certainly hope the club is well into negotiations at this time.

Seeing however we are hypothesising about possible sponsorship strategies, how about this one:

We give smaller companies the chance to sponsor the shirt, these SMEs could really benefit from the added exposure and could really help increase revenue and job potential for a local company.

Each entry to be considered for sponsorship is a set small fee, say £1000 - £2000. This figure needs to large enough to be significant but small enough to increase participation.

A company can purchase as many entries as they like but the overall number of entries is limited (this constraint could be changed dependent on interest). There would also need to be a stipulation in place that this agreement will only be honoured if participation is high enough (i.e.: the revenue generated through participation is greater than the offer they are seeking for sponsorship).

The club then hold a big media event with representatives from each company in attendance. We invite all and sundry from the press down to publicise the event, as it's a new idea some of the nationals may even pick it up.

The sponsors are then decided in a lottery draw style:

1st Prize: main shirt sponsor
2nd Prize: top of back shirt sponsor
3rd Prize: bottom of back shirt sponsor
4th Prize: right sleeve sponsor
5th Prize: left sleeve sponsor
6th Prize: tunnel sponsor for home games
7th Prize: Mighty Max sponsor (his shirt has different sponsorship)

So I think given the odds of winning something potentially worth 80k are quite respectable. Sponsorship of a shirt is far more valuable to a local business than a national. Giving them more return on investment even at the alleged full price than a national could seriously expect.

Even baring this in mind the club has to make entry as lucrative a proposition as possible.

[list
[*1 free 'Corporate' season ticket (not sure if this exists, my idea is that it ties the ST to the company and not an individual and can be given to clients, staff or anyone for any match).[/*:m
[*1 free advert in 1 programme at a random game in the year.[/*:m
[*1 20px square advert on the official website linking to the companies website (this size increases with each entry)[/*:m
[*1 position in a banner rotation in a prominent part of the official website.[/*:m[/list:u

I think those benefits are fair and would 'cost' the club very little to offer and would ensure that companies wouldn't feel they had been hard done too. The only cost would be the banner rotation script if they don't have one in place, I'd write this for them for free if they needed though

.

A local company such as (random google): [url=http://www.oltecgroup.com/Oltec Group[/url could probably justify spending say £8k on this opportunity. For this they would have a 1 in 20 chance of the main sponsorship (if the entries were capped at 160k). The odds of getting some sort of sponsorship would be around 1 in 4!!!

Obviously they are not guaranteed to win anything, so for their £8k they would also receive:

[list
[*8 'Corporate' season tickets.[/*:m
[*1 advert in the programme for 8 random games in the year.[/*:m
[*1 160px square advert on the official website linking to the companies website (this size increases with each entry)[/*:m
[*8 positions in a banner rotation in a prominent part of the official website.[/*:m[/list:u

I think that could actually work, promotion could be done in partnership through the enterprise park, business link and such. Sorry it turned out so long, better get on with some real work now...

warburtons will be our sponsor aha

Quote ="sbohan"I do like the idea ROBINSON mentioned. Traditional sponsorship agreements are going to be hard to negotiate, I certainly hope the club is well into negotiations at this time. Seeing however we are hypothesising about possible sponsorship strategies, how about this one: We give smaller companies the chance to sponsor the shirt, these SMEs could really benefit from the added exposure and could really help increase revenue and job potential for a local company. Each entry to be considered for sponsorship is a set small fee, say £1000 - £2000. This figure needs to large enough to be significant but small enough to increase participation....................... '" Down here, each year, there is a balloon festival held in Bristol. This year, they couldn't find a single sponsor, so did pretty much what you are suggesting, setting up a 100 club, with tickests proced at £2000 each, in a lottery to become the main sponsor. This was eventaully won by Harvey Nicks, who I'm sure could have affordeded to sponsor it without the lottery, but never mind... Interestingly, the value of the sponsor package for this festival is placed at £120k, for a single weekend event. Has anyone from Wigan actually heard of the event? Seems like £80k for a years sponsorship of a "top" Super League team, with lots of coverage is woefully short of the mark. However, 100 tickets sold for £2k each would bring in £200k, and this would seem to be a more realistic figure. There could be something to learn from the festivals promotion.... www.bristolfiesta.co.uk/content.php?pid=45

Quote ="sbohan"I do like the idea ROBINSON mentioned. Traditional sponsorship agreements are going to be hard to negotiate, I certainly hope the club is well into negotiations at this time. Seeing however we are hypothesising about possible sponsorship strategies, how about this one: We give smaller companies the chance to sponsor the shirt, these SMEs could really benefit from the added exposure and could really help increase revenue and job potential for a local company. Each entry to be considered for sponsorship is a set small fee, say £1000 - £2000. This figure needs to large enough to be significant but small enough to increase participation....................... '" Down here, each year, there is a balloon festival held in Bristol. This year, they couldn't find a single sponsor, so did pretty much what you are suggesting, setting up a 100 club, with tickests proced at £2000 each, in a lottery to become the main sponsor. This was eventaully won by Harvey Nicks, who I'm sure could have affordeded to sponsor it without the lottery, but never mind... Interestingly, the value of the sponsor package for this festival is placed at £120k, for a single weekend event. Has anyone from Wigan actually heard of the event? Seems like £80k for a years sponsorship of a "top" Super League team, with lots of coverage is woefully short of the mark. However, 100 tickets sold for £2k each would bring in £200k, and this would seem to be a more realistic figure. There could be something to learn from the festivals promotion.... www.bristolfiesta.co.uk/content.php?pid=45

My first post!

Not sure where you got the 80k figure from but having done some work with a competitor of Mecca's, I think the figure was around £230k for 12 months.

Saints New Home shirt unveiled.

Obviously they have cursed some sponsors in the past, and lost Pilkington's in the off season.

Netherless, the kit carries five sponsors + Puma. I am also when negotiating the main sponsor they prioritised the best deal over biggest name.

If I had any decent amount of money i'd pay for the sponsorship on the understanding there is not to be a sponsor on the front of the shirt.