Essendon Football Club, and i7 Limited today announced the signing of a partnership which will see i7 become a major sponsor of the football club.
As one of Essendon’s four major “protected” sponsors, i7 will secure signage and branding opportunities, and the i7 navigation bar will form part of Essendon’s official website, allowing visitors to access i7’s consumer services, including email, search, e-commerce, online radio channels and ticketing, as well as i7’s core content offerings.
Essendon will create unique content for i7’s sports portal, i7sport.com.au, through Essendon’s exclusive access to its coaches and players prior to, and following, each match, as well as breaking news. Essendon will retain all developmental rights to essendonfc.com and all revenue generated by that site, and will continue to provide content for essendonfc.com.
Today’s agreement with Essendon represents the next stage in the development of i7’s commitment to sports coverage online and the company is planning further opportunities for enhancing its coverage of all sports over the coming twelve months.
“This is an excellent deal for both parties,” Essendon Football Club chief executive, Peter Jackson, said today. “Together, we can work to maximise the returns and exposure for each other’s websites, through a combined approach to e-commerce opportunities and the effective use of technological advancements.
“This deal reinforces the club’s decision to remain independent of the AFL’s mooted internet rights deal and to develop our own internet strategies,” Jackson said. “AFL policy allows for clubs to develop commercial opportunities for their own websites and this is an excellent opportunity for both ourselves and i7. It is of paramount importance to Essendon that we retain and build the direct relationship with our membership and supporter bases and not on-sell or outsource this critical activity for a football club. It was also vitally important that we maintain our long-term rights as the technology and online medium grow.”
The partnership between Essendon and i7 also reinforces the club’s commitment to its major sponsor, Orange. “We simply weren’t prepared to compromise our major sponsor as a result of a deal struck by the AFL,” Jackson said. “Orange is a protected sponsor and we are not in the business of taking such an agreement lightly.”
Commenting, Mr Steve Wise, the Managing Director of New Media and Investments for Seven Network Limited, said: “Our partnership with Essendon allows us to further build our sports presence online, with the latest news and exclusive content from one of Australia’s most successful football clubs, integrating with our online ticketing business, Ticketmaster7, and online radio channels, to establish a leading presence in sports on the web and build a valuable database for our advertising partners.
“We are genuinely excited about this sponsorship. We look forward to supporting the Bombers, its management, coaching and playing staff, as they continue to build value for their members and supporters online.”
Background - essendonfc.com
The Essendon Football Club website, essendonfc.com, is the number one club site in the AFL, generating e-commerce revenues of more than $150,000 in revenue since its re-designed website was launched in February this year. The club is forecasting continuing growth in revenues as the internet expands and fans and members of the club become more familiar with the content of essendonfc.com.
The re-designed site has seen a 33 per cent increase in traffic – with an average of 33,000 page impressions a day (190,000 hits). The season high came on the Monday following the Kangaroos victory – with 49,000 page impressions (280,000 hits).
Essendonfc.com’s The Engine Room has been extremely successful – with members paying less than 50 cents a week for access to exclusive audio and video interviews with players and coaches, exclusive feature stories and members only competitions, and information through email on the team and breaking stories prior to the release of information to the media.
