Super Rugby: Highlanders soothe shirt sponsor fears after blank jersey appears

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Pulse Energy have been on the front of the Highlanders’ jerseys since 2016 but will now split its sponsorship dollars between the Highlanders and Crusaders. Picture: STUFF SPORTS.

Highlanders CEO Roger Clark is nervously keeping one eye on the country’s Covid-19 situation with Super Rugby Aotearoa one month away, but at one least piece of the commercial puzzle has been put in place in the Deep South.

When the Highlanders’ replica jerseys were released by Adidas on Wednesday front-of-shirt sponsor Pulse Energy was conspicuous by its absence, prompting fears the Highlanders had lost a significant chunk of change for what Clark calls “prime real estate”.

The news isn’t that grim. Clark told Stuff on Thursday that the Highlanders had secured a replacement for Pulse Energy on the front of the jerseys – he declined to say who except to confirm it was a New Zealand company – but admitted the sponsorship market was challenging in the Covid-19 era.

“The market is definitely tough,” Clark said. “It’s like all advertising dollars.

“I think everyone is still in survival mode, but we’ll still meet our commercial budgets for the year.

“Our overall commercial budget will still generate the same sort of revenue it did in 2020. We’re pretty pleased about that.

“But it’s been bloody hard work. Everyone is having to work a lot harder. We’ve had to knock on a lot more doors than we had to before to hit our budgets.”

The Highlanders’ new ‘front-of-shirt’ sponsor will be in place for the start of Super Rugby Aotearoa, and could be revealed as early as next week.

The replica jerseys were blank, Clark said, because Adidas needed to be informed as far back as early 2020 what sponsors would feature on the 2021 jerseys.

Pulse Energy won’t walk from rugby. In fact, the energy company will remain a partner and will be represented on the back of the Highlanders’ new jersey.

It has also signed a partnership with the Crusaders, effectively maintaining the amount it spends on Super Rugby but splitting it between the two South Island franchises.

Still, the timing of its decision meant the Highlanders had to pull out the stops to find a replacement.

“Big sponsorships like that don’t happen overnight,” Clark said.

“From our perspective we were in the market pretty late, and at a pretty bad time.

“We’ve got sponsors who are renewed in 2019, some in 2021, some in 2022 and some in 2023, but it just happened with Pulse that the timing was right in the middle of Covid.

 

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