Aviva is handing over its shirt sponsorship of Norwich City to children’s charity Railway Children this weekend when the club plays Arsenal, a game televised by Sky Sports.
The charity supports vulnerable young people in the Norwich area.This is the first time that a commercial sponsor has given over its shirt sponsorship to a charity for a Barclays Premier League match.
Sky Sports has extended the reach of its Sky Sports Scholarships – a programme of support which aims to help athletes fulfil their potential on the international stage and prepare them for life in the spotlight. Sky Sports is helping the athletes with funding for coaching, training and competition and with mentoring support from Sky Sports News presenters.
Funding will be targeted at the specific training and competition needs of each individual athlete and Sky Sports News presenters will partner with them to follow their stories and share their experience of being in the public spotlight.
Sky is a leading investor in sport in Britain and Ireland and its Sky Sports Scholarships programme extends its long-term support of sport through programmes such as British Cycling, Sky Sports Living for Sport and the ECB Coach Education Programme.
Thirty three thousand coaches have graduated from the Sky Sports ECB Coach Education Programme since the scheme was launched four years ago. The latest figures, which include 10,000 coaches who qualified in the last year alone, were revealed as ECB announced that Sky Sports will continue its sponsorship of the programme for a further three years.
Former England coach and Sky Sports commentator David Lloyd said: “This is a fantastic programme and I’m not surprised it’s delivering such impressive results. There are teaching modules to suit all ages and abilities and the quality of training gets better and better. Everyone at Sky Sports is proud of the association and I’m pleased this will continue for another three years.”
The Sky Sports ECB Coach Education Programme aims to attract and train coaches at all levels of grassroots cricket.
Mutual retailer, The Co-operative has signed as official broadcast sponsor for netball coverage on Sky Sports. The one year agreement will include domestic and International televised netball including the all Super League games, World Series, England Netball International Series 2011 and Netball World Championships 2011.
The sponsorship will also see The Co-operative air bespoke bumpers during the broadcast of these key fixtures.
Liz Matkin, Head of Sponsorship for The Co-operative, said: “The decision to sponsor the broadcast coverage continues our long-term relationship with netball in the UK. One million women and girls in the UK play netball every week, and we are committed to supporting the development of what is the most popular team sport for women in the world. Netball clubs play an important role in the community, and the grassroots values of the sport strongly reflect and mirror our own brand values”.
Sky Sports is seeking a sponsor for the live coverage of England’s Home Test Match Series against both Bangladesh and Pakistan in 2010 in June and August.
Sky Sports is seeking a broadcast sponsor for the live coverage of the new ECB 40 League for the 2010 season. Following a 12 month review, the ECB had decided to replace the 50-over Friends Provident Trophy and the NatWest Pro40, with this new 40-over tournament, to be played mainly on Sundays. The format will consist of three groups of seven teams, with the sides playing each other at home and away. Group winners and the best second placed team will qualify for the semi-finals, with the final taking place at Lord’s on Saturday 18th September.
Sky Sports is seeking a sponsor for its live coverage of Premier League Darts in 2010. Premier League Darts, with a prize-fund of £400,000, is Britain‘s biggest indoor sporting event and will open at the O2 Arena in February before moving on to Bournemouth, Belfast and Exeter. The event anticipates an audience in excess of 2009‘s 75,000.
Schweppes has unveiled details of a marketing campaign which will link classic Christmas illustrations to voiceovers by comic actors Martin Freeman and Doon Mackichan. The work, by Mother London, will appear first as sponsorship idents on UKTV then form the basis of a terrestrial TV ad campaign. Coca Cola GB marketing director Cathryn Sleight said the work “captures Schweppes’ personality, adding a welcome twist and a humorous slant to Christmas. It sits in a long tradition of quintessentially British humour that has always been at the core of the Schweppes brand.”
Meanwhile, Ford has signed up as sponsor of Sky Sports News’ weather. The deal, brokered by Mindshare, will promote the relaunch of Ford’s S-MAX. The deal extends a long running partnership between Ford and Sky Sports.
Sky Sports has been told by media regulator Ofcom that it cannot attach a sponsor to its onscreen technology Hawk-Eye, which is used by TV pundits to review decisions made by sports referees in competitions such as The Ashes.
Sky argued that Hawk-Eye – sponsored by Specsavers – is open to commercial branding in the same way that scoreboards and timing devices are. But Ofcom rejected that defence – ruling instead that the technology is an editorial enhancement and therefore a part of the programme itself.
A key concern for Ofcom was that a decision in favour of Sky would have opened the floodgates – allowing other broadcasters to attach sponsors to sports production tools.
Unilever deodorant brand Sure Men is sponsoring a range of content on Sky Sports and Sky Sports News. The news follows the recent announcement that England cricketer Andrew Flintoff is also to work with Sure Men Sport.
The seven-figure deal was brokered by media agency Mindshare Invention. Aside from the TV exposure delivered, Sure Men will also have an online presence via Skysports.com (which attracts 10 million unique user per month). During the summer, Unilever will look for ways to link the Sky and Flintoff deals through promotional tie-ins based around cricket. In a related move, Sure Men also recently become an official partner of the Test Match grounds for the upcoming 2009 Ashes versus Australia.
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