Manchester United today became the second EPL club to ban tweeting during press conferences.  Sunderland were the first and we could see the start of new code of use for the platform.  The clampdown appears to have come about on the back of TV/radio journalists complaining on the unfair advantage this gives as takes longer for their content to get out.

This media backlash can be seen as Twitter becoming a threat to traditional journalists who have, until now, had little competition.  The platform is used in different ways by different people but has rapidly become a news source for immediate breaking news.

Many of today’s press are on Twitter and a large proportion of stories featured in newspapers and on TV quote people from their Twitter updates.

In the US there is a twitter ban for players from 45mins pre-matches to the end of press commitments in the NFL and certain teams have banned it.  In the UK, Leicester Tigers have been the first to put an outright ban on players and the ECB is under pressure to do the same after recent faus pax by high profile players.

So, after the massive use of Twitter in an unregulated way are we now going to see beaurocracy take over and a move in the opposite direction.  There are still many who feel threatened by the new technology or don’t see its benefits and the recent examples will be used to help give them an excuse.

Where do you see this going?  Does using Twitter break any rules in press conferences?

The alleged match fixing charges against Pakistani cricketers which have been dominating the sporting headlines recently raise two interesting questions. Firstly, will there always be match fixing in sport? Secondly, is sport really any different to any other business?

History would suggest that the answer to the first question is unfortunately a resounding yes. In ancient Greece, Olympians had to take an oath to maintain the integrity of the competition but bribes were still common. Match fixing is probably as old as sport itself.

Getting back to cricket – the English game, which first attracted gamblers as early as the 1660s, is no stranger to match fixing controversy. A decade ago Hanse Cronjé, the then South Africa captain, was charged with match fixing and players from India, Pakistan, Kenya and South Africa have all been banned since 2000.

Our national game, football, has also been tainted by match fixing. Back in 1964, eight players from the FA were jailed for it. More recently, in 1999, a Malaysian based betting group was caught installing a device to disrupt the floodlights at Charlton Athletic’s ground and further investigations revealed that the group had also been responsible for floodlight failure at both West Ham and Crystal Palace. Another footballing scandal involved Matt Le Tissier who “revealed that he once attempted to play a part in a £10,000 betting scam while a player with Southampton”.

Across the channel, French football was shocked by a match fixing scandal in 1993 involving powerhouse club Olympique de Marseille (OM). In the year that OM won the Champions League, the club fixed a match with Valenciennes. The club was subsequently stripped of its French championship. Financial irregularities linked to the club president, Bernard Tapie, were also discovered. As punishment, the club suffered a forced relegation to the second division.

Similarly, Italian football was thrown into turmoil in 2006 when several major teams, including then league champions Juventus in addition to AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina, were all found guilty of match-fixing (the clubs actually influenced the appointment of match referees).

There are also ongoing investigations into match fixing in several other European countries and sports. In August 2010 charges were filed against two men alleged to have attempted to influence at least 10 football matches in Germany and 14 elsewhere in Europe. As I write this, John Higgins, the snooker star, is also maintaining his ‘100 per cent’ innocence into allegations he threw frames.

Arguably the most famous case of match-fixing in sport is the ‘Black Sox’ scandal. In 1919, the Chicago White Sox threw the baseball World Series. Eight members of that team received life bans for deliberately losing to the Cincinnati Reds. The ‘Black Sox’ scandal resulted from players being linked to the Chicago underworld, and set a pattern of established crime syndicates being associated with professional sports match fixing.

All these cases, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, merely demonstrate that sport is a reflection of the human character. Unfortunately that means that traits such as greed, arrogance, self-interest, to name a few, will always be present in sport. The stakes in sport are high and the punishment for breaking rules too light. The incentive to throw matches is always going to be there – and I haven’t even touched upon other sporting crimes such as doping, cheating on the field itself, breaching salary caps and other matters.

Getting back to the second question, sport is therefore no different to any other business (just look at some of the banking scandals on Wall St).  However, the ‘rotten apples’ in sport are definitely in a minority.

Nearly all sports are played, administered and governed properly and in the right spirit. Sport is far from being broken. The growth in popularity of sport on a global scale is living proof of that. The examples of good sportsmanship are just too numerous to mention but one famous one I’d like to leave you with took place in English football in the 1999/2000 season. In a surprising demonstration of fair play from a player previously banned for pushing a referee, the Italian striker Paolo Di Canio caught “the ball rather than shoot when Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard was on the ground injured”.

The Football League launched its free Official Football League Clubs iPhone app at the end of August and is available to download for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

It covers all the teams that are covered by the Football League Interactive deal, which currently stands at 65 of the 72 npower Football League clubs.  So if you follow Leeds United, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, Accrington, Aldershot or Stevenage unfortunately you wont be able to get your clubs updates.

Check on the list of clubs when you have downloaded the app to make sure yours is there.

If you are one of the lucky ones you can get some great features including latest news, fixtures, stats and player profiles.

The app also connects users to their twitter and/or Facebook accounts so it even easier to share comments and views with friends.

“Fans live and breathe football and want to be kept up-to-date wherever they are in the world at a time that suits them,” said Ian Ritchie, Chairman of FLi.

“We designed the Official Football League Clubs’ iPhone app with this in mind, using innovative technology to deliver access to rich and interactive content, tailored to your club.  Now you never need to be out of touch with your team.”

You can upgrade to the premium service (have to make some extra income somehow) by paying £4.99 for the season to access match video highlights 24 hours after the game and incorporates Google Mapping to make sure you don’t get lost on the way to the stadium (useful for away days?).

The Football League partnered up with Threepipe to help spread the message through social media and traditional media outlets to encourage fans of the teams to sign up. 

Looking through Google, it appears to have worked with messages appearing on club websites and fan forums announcing the launch and providing download links.

Sadly if you have a Blackberry, Android or Nokia then you will have to sit by your Apple friends and catch their updates.  Perhaps we will gain an update as to whether any other platforms will be catered for in the coming weeks.

Have you downloaded it?  What are the pro’s and con’s of the service?

Most businesses are familiar with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems and will be using them in one form or another to give them insights on their customers, their purchasing and contact preferences and helping them maintain the relationship. As social media and social networking activity steams ahead with no sign of slowing, Social CRM has been getting an increasing amount of airtime.

Jermiah Owyang has compiled a good list of Social CRM (sCrm) vendors and I would expect to see this list grow over the next 12 months. As social media monitoring has matured and the ability to pull insights from the myriad of online conversations and UGC is now established, the next step is to overlay that data onto existing CRM systems. People are disclosing more and more information in their public social profiles and business can use this to provide more personal customer service and build deeper relationships with them.

CRM & Social Media Monitoring Convergence

It should be a natural step for the incumbent CRM vendors to look at integrating a robust listening tool to their current offerings. We are already seeing it in action, Radian6 integrates with Salesforce for example and I wonder how much longer before an Oracle or SAP buy up one of the monitoring vendors. We have seen community platforms like Lithium acquire Scoutlabs to form a social CRM offering, email marketing firm ExactTarget scooped up Filtrbox and Attensity bought Biz360. Jacob Morgan has a good take on it here and has a great diagram showing the SCRM process, check it out.

I think we will see social media monitoring augment existing CRM platforms and in that respect, all CRM systems will or can become social CRM. So, if I was in the CRM business I would definitely be looking to integrate and/or acquire a monitoring vendor to add a layer of ‘social’ to my software. I would then look to build, borrow or steal an engagement platform on top of that to produce an all encompassing social media management system. Again, we are already seeing this develop with the likes of Spredfast, Attensity, Involver and Radian6’s engagement console (which I haven’t yet seen in action).

Culture over Technology

But…is the software really the point? For a business to get the benefit out of a sCRM or even a current CRM system, they need to care about the customer and not just about mining their data for push marketing initiatives. If a business understands that the customer has become increasingly empowered and now demands to be in control over how they interact with an organization and vice versa then they are already using socialCRM! If they don’t understand this and don’t move to ‘operationalise’ their business accordingly to act upon the insights gained through social media…then no amount of cool technology will change that. It’s a cultural thing that most businesses aren’t yet ready for.

As a business, make sure you understand the ‘why’ behind all of this. There is some sweet software on the way and if you are set up internally to exploit it to the full then there are huge advantages to be gained. But it needs to start from within a business’ culture…they need to begin by being in the ‘give a shit about my customers’ business!

www.spearfishlabs.com

Sponsorship has been increasing in popularity as a marketing tool for brands to create awareness, drive sales or new business, and increase customer loyalty or employee engagement.  With added interest and investment in Sponsorship, brands are now beginning to tread very carefully around the marketing tool and here are some of the reasons why. 

Mismatched brands and rights

Brands spend a lot of time and money carefully planning and deciding on the right property to sponsor (either this or its Chairman’s choice).  Despite this, there are brands that have spent huge sums of money on the wrong rights, which have not paid dividends and certainly haven’t offered much return on investment.  In some cases sponsorship has had negative effects in terms of ROI and a bad fit between brand and property has led to damaged reputations for the former and reduced commercial value for the latter.  However, today, brands have become much savvier about what they attach their name to because of the huge cost of sponsorship and with the global recession this has never been as crucial as it is now. 

Financial Services

During the recession’s worst moments any financial services company about to spend money on sponsorship was met with harsh criticism and serious public backlash.  Even now, as we begin coming out of the worst of it there are still strong opinions on the practice.  Bank of America ended any talks with the New York Yankees due to huge financial difficulties and UBS cancelled its sponsorship of the Hong Kong Open after it received a $59.2 billion bailout from the Swiss government.  Both did so for fear of major public backlash.   RBS on the other hand announced $41 billion in losses just after extending its sponsorship of the Six Nations – a decision which was met with outcry, especially as it is 70% owned by the government. 

The effects of digital

With digital, bad news can travel extremely fast.  This has meant that companies have had to rethink marketing strategies.  Bad press around a property can cause devastating effects for any company that has created a strong association through heavy marketing activity.  To illustrate the enormous implications of a scandal, combined with the power of digital, just look at Tiger Woods.  As soon as the story broke about his behaviour it spread across the world in seconds.  Shareholders of Nike, Gatorade, and other sponsors consequently lost a collective of $5 to $12 billion due to a significant drop in their stock’s values. 

Embarrassment 

Poorly performing teams, embarrassing scandals, politically damaging stories.  These are all reasons for brands (or in some cases properties) to cut-off associations with partners.  Famous and very recent examples of this are Accenture dropping Tiger Woods, Nationwide dropping the FA, and only last week, two Indian state-run firms – NTPC and Power Grid Corp of India – have decided to scrap their multi-million dollar sponsorships of the Delhi Commonwealth Games due to negative publicity around allegations of corruption, mismanagement and malpractice. 

In addition, the BP oil fiasco that has engulfed the Gulf of Mexico has severely damaged the reputations of many of the arts properties it sponsors, primarily The Royal Opera House, Tate Galleries, and British Museum.

Brands are now very cautious about what they attach their name to.  Understanding sponsorship and the effect that it has on consumers is key to understanding the possible risks of association, as well as the benefits.

This week has seen the release of a new FREE ebook that is designed to help grassroots sport when it comes to unravelling the dark art of Social Media. 

It has been put together by Ash Read from www.fundsport.com who has been writing for UKSN since the start in January and also is a regular guest blogger on www.sportsnetworker.com. 

Whether your a large sports club, a Sunday league football team, or an individual athlete there’s no escaping the fact that the Internet is going to play a big part in your development, and your future.

“Social media is about adding to the enjoyment of being a part of your club – giving your members more memories, more talking points and more laughs. For athletes and clubs alike a strong online presence can separate you from others and make you stand out, this could potentially be the difference between getting sponsorship and not getting sponsorship.”

In this ebook you’ll learn:

- Why should you take advantage of social media and the Internet?
- Why should you care about social media?
- The ins and outs of social media
- How can you use social media?

It is a great read and if you are involved in sport at any level and have an interest in social media then its well worth downloading.  If you have any questions for Ash you can get hold of him on twitter on @AshRead14

Click on the picture below for your copy….

Geolocation has been the smash hit in the social media scene of 2010. Coming from relative obscurity in early 2010, Foursquare alone now boasts over 3 million users. With the NYC start up recently breaking it’s own record for most new users in one day, the social media darling has recently took funding to the tune of $20m while reportedly also turning down a buyout offer from Yahoo.

With Foursquare beginning to assert its authority in geolocation, one of it’s biggest possible rivals decided to step in. Earlier this month Facebook announced ‘Facebook Places’, the social networking heavyweight with over 500 million users took geolocation from niche into the mainstream overnight.

Where as location based services Foursquare, Gowalla, Hot Potato, Yelp and others relied on social networking to spread their message, Facebook turned the tables and are now trying to stamp its authority in the geolocation game by creating its own platform 

With all these recent developments, let’s look at the big players in the game right now, what they currently offer, what they may offer in the future and how sports marketers should be trying to take advantage of geolocation.

Thought geolocation was just for geeks? This billboard in Times Square begs to differ.

Facebook Places

So far Facebook Places is yet to really show its hand, while currently only available to users in the United States, the social media giant hasn’t actually released full details on how businesses can take advantage of the platform, but let’s start with a few titbits from what we know so far.

You can claim your location: Whether it’s your ball park, your front office or your training facility, you can now claim it and anything else you own. If it’s not already there, feel free to create it yourself.

You can link your Fan Page to your ‘Place’: You are able to link your Facebook ‘Place’ to your Fan Page, so do that ASAP.

Yep, that’s about all we really know so far.

For more info on Facebook Places, check out the slide below for a full introduction.

 
Facebook Places for Advertisers
 

Why Use Facebook Places?
This is one for the future. With very few features available so far, it is very hard to tell you to focus on Facebook Places – as being in such an early phase of its development it’s impossible to tell where it will go – but once the platform finds it’s feet, it will be crucial to your digital marketing plan.

Possible additions?

• Facebook Places ads: Ads that target you due to your location
• More game aspects: Features similar to mayorships, rewards, etc
• Hot Potato features (which are covered further down) this includes in-venue messaging

Foursquare

Currently the number one place for all your geolocation needs. It has the most exposure, has the biggest userbase (specifically for geolocation) and also allows you to take control of your venue. Not only these factors, but we have case studies. Manchester City, from the English Premier League, was the first team in all of professional sports to have an official presence on Foursquare. They had their own sub-page on the foursquare.com website, as well as the ability to let their fans “follow” them on Foursquare and become fans.

What that actually cost I’m not sure but it wouldn’t have been cheap – as Foursquare badges alone reportedly around ten thousand dollars a month – so I wouldn’t tell you to run to your boss and ask for an official presence on Foursquare. What can you do? Similar to Facebook:

Create or claim your venue:
Once you do this, then you can start serving ads or messages to people that check in to your arena/front office/tail-gate, etc

Serve Ads
You want to start making some money off geolocation? Serve ads. When you claim your venue and you are then an owner of it on Foursquare, you then able to send a message to anyone who checks in to your venue. Let’s say you own your venue, have tens of thousands of fans coming to your venue every week, and want to start promoting on Foursquare. You could have a special on hot dogs that day, or maybe you have a piece of merchandise you want to get rid of quickly, serve the ad accordingly. You can change the ads as often as you like, but make sure you give a call to action with a discount or offering to the end user to increase the uptake of your ad.

Use Analytics
We’ve all heard of Google Anayltics, well Foursquare has their own analytics system. It allows you to see who comes to your venue, , what time of day/week they check in and if they haves shared their check-in on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. A great an easy way to reward fans could be through giving away a jersey/cap/pair of tickets to your “Top Visitor”.

Why Use Foursquare?
Right now, Foursquare is the best place to market your sport in geolocation. It is the most popular platform and has the most active user base but most importantly, it allows you to monetize your marketing efforts.

Possible additions?

• Pay per listing: With so many venues in short proximity of one another, businesses should be allowed to out-bid one another for priority listings
• More interactivity: Being able to take photos/videos and tag them in your check-in
• Social gaming: Similar to Facebook creating currency, Foursquare may offer virtual goods down the track that have real world currency

Gowalla

Gowalla can sometimes be forgotten when it comes to sports marketing, as it is a lesser known entity when compared to its main rival Foursquare. Right now Gowalla has a smaller user base, but allows for a far greater check-in experience. The interactive platform Gowalla can offer with its graphic artwork and the ability for users to take their own images takes the check-in experience to a whole new level. Userss can also pick up virtual goods like Livestrong bands, books, pieces of fruit, etc, creating a game for the users.

In sports marketing however, Gowalla recently gave us one of the most amazing social media case studies we have seen. Gowalla teamed up with the New Jersey Nets and offered virtual goods, in the form of virtual tickets to their fans. The tickets were placed virtually in Gowalla venues around relevant areas like basketball courts, gyms or hotels throughout New Jersey. The users were then able to pick up the virtual tickets with in Gowalla and trade them in for real tickets at the stadium. Check out the slideshare below for the full case study.

Why Use Gowalla?
If the service that the Nets used ever becomes mainstream in Gowalla, this is a must use platform. By giving away virtual goods such as tickets or jerseys, geolocation can open up a whole new ‘fan engagement’ sports marketing has never seen before.

When compared to Foursquare the experience for the fan is a whole lot richer, and allows them to share their own special moment,whether it’s a picture of their son at the ball game, or the view from their seat. Although on the flip side, what if a user is to take a negative image, with abusive language, graffiti or simply something you don’t want to be seen at your venue, there is not much you can do about it except report it to Gowalla and wait.

When combined with the relatively small user base and there aren’t yet and ways for teams or leagues to claim venues, so from a marketing perspective, the platform is limited.

Possible additions? 

• While their monetization plans have been kept mainly for big business, expect more business aspects for small businesses such as ads and priority listings
• Claim a venue: Allows businesses to claim their own venue and then control them

The End-User Experience: Foursquare vs Gowalla

The following image is a screenshot of the difference the user experiences for Foursquare and Gowalla. The top half is the Foursquare page for Yankee Stadium;  it a fairly bland experience for the user, nothing really stands out or makes it unique as this page is no different to any other. (Side note: It appears the Yankees haven’t claimed their venue and no staff are listed)

In the bottom half we have the homepage for Yankee Stadium on Gowalla. A completely unique experience with the stadium having its own individual icon, each check-in listed (with status/photo if they have one) and the page also has over 50 user generated images.

What amazes me though is the number of check-in’s. Foursquare has over 21,000, with 12,000 unique users whilst Gowalla has 600 total check-ins and only 300 unique users.

Even though the numbers show a 35:1 ratio of users, I really like what Gowalla has to offer.

With their virtual goods, unique artwork and the ability for users to take their own images, Gowalla definitely wins in the battle of check-in experience.

Hot Potato

You may not have heard of Hot Potato and that’s fine, but you may soon be seeing it’s functionality. Facebook recently purchased the start-up which means you may start seeing a few of its feature popping in Facebook Places sooner rather than later.

One of the major selling points of Hot Potato is that it allows instant messaging between users that have checked in to the same venue. Let’s say for example you’re at a game, and five other people check-in to the same game on Hot Potato, you can now chat to them, just like you were at home on MSN. Where as Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook will simply list the people, Hot Potato actually allows you to chat with them, taking that check-in experience to a whole new level. While not commonly used for sports, its mainly popularity so far has been  at concerts or similar live events

Check out the video on Hot Potato below

Possible editions?

• The future of the company is not clear. They will either be allowed to continue as is, be swallowed completely and become apart of Facebook or a combination of both

Summary

There is no doubt that right now Foursquare is the place to be in geolocation. With the large user base, ability to claim your own venue and serve ads, it wins this battle.

While the experience Gowalla can offer for the end user is the best out there, for sports marketers it is extremely limited and you are relying on the users to generate the content for you, and you may experience the dangers that come with that.

Any competitor who has a user base of over 500 million will always be a threat, and once Facebook Places is released to all countries and goes through a few minor tweaks it will be a dominant force in geolocation and sports marketing, but not just yet.

www.sportspiel.com.au

Kevin Pietersen has become the latest cricketer to be caught out on Twitter and could find himself in hot water with the ECB because of it.

We have highlighted the cases of several athletes around the world who have come a cropper recently and Peterson has shown that when the red mist descends then Twitter can be too easy to use.

With so many journalists using Twitter to gain latest scoops must have thought Christmas had come early when they saw this come up in Peterson’s stream.  At the moment there are no rules as to when and where players can use social media, plus I imagine no training by the ECB, clubs or agents for their prized assets on the do’s and don’ts.

You will probably have seen/read that Pietersen found out he was to be dropped from the England team for the first time since his debut back in 2004.  To say he wasn’t happy about it is an understatement as his tweet reveals although he has come out to say it should have been a direct message (DM) and not gone out into the public domain.  It still doesnt excuse the language used.

It is generally understood that players are not allowed to comment about team squads until after the official announcement is made.  This tweet came out several hours before and was soon picked up by blogs, new sites and TV across the globe.

Even though it was hastily removed it had already been seen, copied and pasted.  These things are impossible to undo no matter if you hit the delete button or not.

After Azeem Rafiq’s ban and fine for abusing the England U19 team development manager  on Twitter (plus being caught out late whilst on duty).  There is no doubt that the ECB will have to take a tough stance with at least a fine.

Talk is about a new rule being brought in banning centrally contracted players from using social media on the Ashes tour this winter.  The ECB claim to have reminded players before now about using social media responsibly, but how much training/education did they actually give?

This would be a massive over reaction but one you can see happening when you have technophobes such as Geoff Miller as an England National Selector.  His reaction was unfortunately obvious;

“I don’t like that kind of language and I don’t use that language at all.  I don’t follow Twitter and I’m not a great believer in that kind of thing. I don’t think it is necessary. I’m still the national selector and what I do is select sides with my co-selectors that we think is right for England. My priority is the England side and it is not about individuals.”

It doesn’t hold out much hope for the advocates of social media within the England team or ECB does it!

This shows a very archaic view compared to our cricketing compatriots in Australia who show a much deeper understanding of the benefits of its use. 

Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s operations manager, said there would be no social networking bans placed on the players. “At this stage it’s really important that we are about growing the game and embracing the future, and young people are a critical part of it,” he said. “We want young people to be associated with the game.” The coach Tim Nielsen has signed up to Twitter and even the team manager Steve Bernard is using it.

And captain Ricky Ponting is equally enthusiastic about the benefits, “You won’t see us banning our players from doing that sort of stuff,” he said at the team’s camp in Queensland. “It is your job as international players to promote the game and be the best you can for the game. If we can use social networks, if that brings people closer to the game, brings people through the gates to play, then that’s what it is all about.”

Ponting has 11,000 likes on his Facebook page and vice-captain Michael Clarke has 42,000 following his every tweet.  Showing that they practice what they preach and see that for every slip and PR shocker there they are far outweighed by the use of social media for a better future.

“The biggest thing we face as international players is … everyone knows us with the helmet on but very few in Australia, or around the world, actually understand what we are like with the helmet off,” Ponting said. “If there are ways to express yourself then feel free to do that. I am totally all for that, as long as it is done the right way and within reason.”

What do you think the future for social media in cricket is and will the ECB typically over react to Pietersen’s comments?

Will Carling famously referred to the game in England as being run by ’57 old farts’ back in 1995 when he was national captain. However, English rugby (union) has come a long way since then. Admittedly results haven’t been entirely awe inspiring following the 2003 World Cup triumph – but in commercial terms the future looks rosy.

According to SportsPro magazine, in 2009 “games at Twickenham generated £29.2 million for the RFU, accounting for a quarter of their £118 million turnover. The union’s gate receipts have actually increased by £4.1 million since the 2006-2007 season.” Last season in the 6 nations “England could have sold out its 82,000 capacity Twickenham stadium twice over for each of its two home games”.  Additionally, “England received the largest economic boost from the tournament, with a total of US $132.82 million spent by fans on match tickets, transport, food and beverage sales, accommodation, merchandising, and at city attractions, and by sponsors on marketing”.

Hospitality and marketing have been important aspects of the increased commercialisation of rugby in the country where Webb Ellis first picked up the ball. In terms of sponsorship, England’s involvement with O2, its principal sponsor since 1995 when it was known as BT Cellnet, has been both beneficial and lucrative for rugby. England’s mixed broadcasting package, unique to the home unions, with both Sky and the BBC ensures strong annual TV revenue. The BBC covers home games in the 6 nations while Sky covers the autumn internationals and much more – from U20 internationals to the Army and Navy game. Looking to the future, England will also host the 8^th Rugby World Cup in 2015. The Rugby World Cup is the third largest sporting event after the football world cup and the Olympics. When staged in France, in 2007, it delivered “a total economic impact estimated at up to £2.1 billion” for the host nation.

Domestically the picture looks bright too. Aviva, the fifth largest insurer in the world, has recently replaced Guinness as the official title sponsor of England’s premier club rugby competition. In a 4 year deal, Aviva will pump £20 million into the renamed Aviva Premiership. In another exciting move, JP Morgan Asset Management earlier this year launched a Sevens tournament for the 12 premiership clubs. This is a bold move which aims to build on the momentum that entry into the 2016 Olympics has given the shortened version of the rugby game.

There are, however, some small dark clouds for rugby in England. The so-called ‘Bloodgate’ scandal has left a bad taste in the mouth (quite literally). The affair has tarnished the image and reputation of both Harlequins (one of the oldest clubs in the game) and the sport in general. It would certainly have been scrutinised by sponsors even though Etihad Airways has signed a one year extension to its sponsorship with the Harlequins club.

The relationship between the Premiership clubs and the national squad is not always a comfortable one. Like in football, there are arguably too many overseas stars in the domestic game. If selection of these players curtails the long-term playing development of home grown talent the results of the national side may suffer in years to come. Some players in the national side are also plying their trade overseas and this has led to friction between their respective clubs and Martin Johnson’s national squad. This was notably the case when the French club Toulon refused to release Jonny Wilkinson for a recent England squad summer camp. To keep revenues coming in, the RFU needs to carefully manage these issues to ensure that its strongest side runs out at Twickenham in order to attract sponsors, broadcasters and keep fans streaming through the turnstiles.

The upcoming season promises to be an exciting one as the rugby community looks forward to the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Whether Martin Johnson and his England team will get their hands on the Webb Ellis Trophy again remains to be seen.

One thing we do know for sure – on the commercial front English rugby is in great health.