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http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/wed...ugby-news-177/
Well, it turns out us fans are not the only ones who are pissed at the ARU. Sponsors are too. Already this year, BMW and Lion Nathan have announced that they will be walking away from ARU brands. However, the biggest shock last night was, as reported by The Telegraph, the news that construction company Buildcorp will be pulling a million-dollar sponsorship of the naming rights to the National Rugby Championship.
Buildcorp is one of rugby’s most loyal brand supporters, having sponsored rugby clubs since 1992. They have supported everything from Shute Shield clubs to national teams. But, their reason for pulling their naming rights is a rugby one: they became frustrated with the ARU’s inaction on starting a national women’s competition.
Following the huge growth in female rugby participation, Buildcorp had made multiple requests for a Womens XVs version of the NRC, a request that has not be fulfilled by the ARU. While the ARU are launching a national womens sevens competition in August, for Buildcorp, that was not enough.
Buildcorp co-founder and Principal, Josephine Sukkar, said that Buildcorp could not continue to align their business with an NRC competition that didn’t offer the same opportunities to women as it does to men. Sukkar also is the president of Australian Women’s Rugby, and a director of the Australian Rugby Foundation.
“At Buildcorp we really need to align any partnership we’re involved with to our values, and it was not a championship that was able to produce a women’s competition,” Sukkar said.
“We had asked for that for a long time and we had wanted it to look the same as the men’s and for them to be playing on the same fields as curtain raisers.
“That is the problem for the ARU at the moment to be able to deliver that. So we discontinued that sponsorship this year. It’s the first time we’ve ever discontinued a rugby sponsorship, but that was pretty difficult for us to stand alongside that.”
Buildcorp have been the naming sponsor of the NRC since it’s inception in 2014, and also are the naming rights sponsor of the Wallaroos and Women XVs National Championships.
The ARU sent out a spokesman, complimenting Buildcorp as a ‘wonderful’ sponsor and ‘integral’ to the NRC.
“While it is disappointing to lose Buildcorp as naming rights partner for the NRC this year, we understand their position that they would like to see the formation of an equivalent women’s competition.”
What follows afterwards is another large amount of ARU jargon about ‘how much they’ve invested in women’s sport, the ARU was successful in growing the game’, blah blah blah etc etc. (yes you have, but you just lost a major womens sponsor and 95% of all Aussie rugby supporters are pissed at you for your management. Just saying).
Sukkar however said that she would consider sponsorship again – but only if the ARU introduced a women’s national XV competition.