In fairness, I doubt they had a lot of options to choose from.
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Guinness got the ProWhatever sponsorship for relative peanuts at the time as there was very low interest.
Technically this was announced before the Quatar debacle.
Anyway if the money works I don't mind too much.
Which is a fair point. A lot of the benefits of a season ticket (access to big games) doesn't apply to Leinster as Leinster move big games to Aviva.
This is a tournament that had Guinness and RaboBank as its title sponsors previously
And no title sponsor last season...
It's an inherently unattractive product, and beggars cannot be choosers.
Its also been outlawed having alcohol sponsoring sporting events like that, rabo are gone, and the irish banks are all well exposed to rugby already. It leaves airlines, global financial companies, car manufacturers and not much else to target as a title sponsor.
Those problems coupled with the strange geographic spread of participating countries makes a title sponsor near impossible.
They had Vodacom in South Africa, the smart move would have been to put Vodafone in as sponsor in Europe
Personally I prefer not having to be reminded about banks and financial institutions the whole time so BKT are welcome in my books
The thing is that Vodafone would have needed to want to sponsor the URC in Europe. You can't just make them the sponsor. They obviously don't have an interest in such a sponsorship. And while Vodafone are the majority shareholder in Vodacom, Vodacom are a separate company.
Yes smart-arse I'm aware you don't just make a company the title sponsor... You'd wonder why vodafone wouldn't be interested in the exposure though
The change in title sponsorship means I've failed in my quest to count the number of times the name of Diageo's most well known beer was used by the stadium announcer at the RDS. I never managed it, always lost count somewhere between 20 and 40...
You don't really have to wonder, as Former Former Former put it the URC is an unattractive product with limited exposure.
BKT are also one of the sponsors of the Rugby World Cup therefore they have some clout.
People may want to continue to piss on the league and the size or fame (or infamy) of the companies sponsoring it, but the fact that multiple recent sponsorship announcements have been made can seen as nothing but a good thing.
Also with regards to BKT. They've been a sponsor of La Liga in Spain for the last three years and recently extended the sponsor ship for another 3 years. I saw their logo on the electronic substitute boards while watching a match recently.
https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/
On the 2023 website they are listed as an "official supplier"
Always good for a Rugby World Cup competition to have an official supplier of tyres for their tractors!
They're still paying for that and their branding will be visable at all the games, so its not wrong to call them a sponsor.
Ligue 1 in France, one of the top 5 footballing leagues in the world, are sponsored by Uber Eats and actually include it in their title. I wouldn't be getting too embarrassed about a tyre company..
True enough... I'm just curious as to what an agri-tyre company are supplying to the rugby world cup
The grass on the pitch has to be cut somehow I guess they could use a ride on lawnmower
The article linked above describes them as a currency exchange company.
Are there several companies with the same name?
Edit: nope, a comma completely changes the meaning of that headline, my bad
i see the Dragons have rebranded themselves from Dragons Rugby to Dragons RFC. Some bolox about them not been seen as a rugby club.
For anyone in the UK, Premier Sports is £80 for the year at the moment if you use the promo code ELITE80.
It's a bit amateurish where it doesn't show the amount until after you've paid, but I just took a leap of faith and I see they've taken £80 from my account. So it's legit.
Premier Sports has all the URC games BTW.
big win for Treviso - 33-11
More of the same from Glasgow I'm afraid, despite a new coach.
Stephen Ferris was not impressed with the Scottish side and didn't mince his words while John Barclay was more circumspect in the studio analysis.
Treviso looked quite impressive to be fair.
yea they are really inconsistent, they flatter to deceive
about Treviso, its baffling how they change their squad around quite drastically from one season to the next, I often wonder what they'd be like if they applied an element of continuity
Thanks very much for the heads up.
OK, here we go, match tracker
Parma 0-0 Leeds United.
Some very uncharacteristic scorelines this weekend
Last year's table toppers almost losing to last year's wooden spoon winners, Benetton beating Glasgow, Munster losing to Cardiff and a draw between Scarlett's and Ospreys
Interestingly the next weekend is the last round before the emerging Ireland squad go to South Africa
Glasgow are in a spot of bother! That's a decent squad. They looked very poor.
I'd see the squad as fairly middle tier. A far cry from the one that won the pro 12 all those years ago, they looked great back then. Missing a lot of stars from those days.
Just looking at Sharks Zebre now. Thaakir Abrahams making some lightning breaks. Looks like a Jason Robinson on the left wing for the Sharks. Great to see this injection of talent into the league
An absolute stunner of a Zebre try that would have levelled the game at 39-39 called back for needless obstruction at the kick off. Such a shame.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w8.vanillicon.com/v2/8a022abb175d445f2b5b8a1c545f3d3f.svg)
