Australia’s highest-profile sports stars are venturing into entrepreneurship, State of Origin XXXX sponsorship

Jun 07, 2024

Today’s lineup:

Some of Australia’s highest-profile sports stars are venturing into entrepreneurship
In the lead up to the State of Origin, brands launched their new sponsorship campaigns, and one worth noticing is XXXX's 'Pride in your Origin' campaign

Not yet a subscriber? Discover specialised sports marketing insights, tailored for sports industry professionals within Australia and across the globe. If you work in sports for an agency, brand or rights-holder then this is for you.

Ahead of the 2024 Ampol State of Origin, Queensland Rugby League announced a new 4-year deal with Ford - this deal cements them as the 3rd largest Auto brand by sponsorship spend in the ANZ market according to Scout
Deakin extended its partnership with Geelong Cats for another 3-years, which includes co-major partner of the AFLW program and naming rights of the Deakin Cats Community Centre
McDonald’s extended and upgraded its partnership with the South Sydney Rabbitohs until the end of the 2028 season
Rugby Australia announced Gallagher as an official partner of the Wallabies, Wallaroos, Super Rugby W, under 16s and 19s programs, and any future National Club Competition
iAthletic and Basketball Australia inked ‘Australia’s largest basketball apparel deal’ - Basketball Australia's teams & athletes will rep iAthletic for the next 3-years
Patty Mills announced a new partnership with LSKD to his 615k+ followers
The Gold Coast SUNS hosted a Big Freeze event to show support for FightMND’s Big Freeze 10 campaign, featuring a long the list of VIPs including Ian Healy, Tammy Hembrow, Alex Rance and Spida Everitt

The NBL announced 10-time NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony as the Next Stars Ambassador and future team owner
UFC Vice President Peter Kloczko hinted that Melbourne may host another UFC major event in 2025 or 2026
Crown became the ‘official UFC Fan Hotel in Australia’ as part of a new 3-year deal
INC Sports Nutrition partnered with Chemist Warehouse to launch a new TVC featuring Charlie Curnow, Isaac Quaynor, and Erin Phillips
As part of a new new strategic partnership with Amazon’s Prime Video, Optus Sport will distribute the Men’s T20 World Cup to commercial venues (e.g. pubs, bars, clubs) within Australia
Netball Australia is set to receive $6m in Federal Government funding as a ‘first step’ ahead of the 2027 Netball World Cup
AFL GOALS, a new AFL mental health initiative that aims to entertain, engage and harness the power of footy to help teachers across the country educate students about mental fitness & resilience was launched by the league
The Sydney Marathon presented by ASICS, announced SBS as its host broadcast partner

Some of Australia’s highest-profile sports stars are venturing into entrepreneurship

There's a growing movement of Australian current and ex-athlete’s successfully launching their own business ventures, opening the door to potential long-term wealth creation and financial success in life after sport.

Examples worth noticing:

Sports

5th Quarter Camps - Isaac Heeney, Toby Greene
AFL Max - James Podsiadly
ONE TWO Boxing - Trent Cotchin & Josh Nesbitt
CK Athletic Development - Corbin Baxter
NETFIT Netball – Sarah Wall

Agency

Producey - Dylan Buckley
Bastion - Fergus Watts
Zib Digital - Chris Knights

E-commerce

Pickstar - James Begley, Matthew Pavlich

Apparel & equipment

Jaggad - Chris Judd, Steve Greene
Blindside - Abbey Holmes
Skwosh - Jack Watts
RIXX Eyewear - Tommy Sheridan
Universe 7 - Jerome Luai, Brian To’o
Let’s Trot - Josh Addo-Carr
Posisocks - Trent Cotchin
Triangl - Craig Ellis
Zena Sport - Brad Johnson

Venture Capital & Private Equity

Athletic Ventures - Matt De Boer

FMCG

Nedd’s Milk - Nedd Brockmann
Superboost - Tom Phillips (investors include Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Touk Miller)

Real Estate

Greg Norman Company - Greg Norman
Wel.co - Andrew Welsh

Hospitality

Bluestone Lane - Nick Stone

Wellness

Recoverie - Stephen Hoiles
Inner Studio - Will Slade, Ben Sinclair
Milk & Co – Michael Klim

Alcohol

Drink West - Tai Tuivasa, Tyson Pedro, Nathan Cleary
Bloke Beer - Denan Kemp
Barry / Alter Ego Drinks - Bailey Smith, Reece Walsh, Nick & Josh Diacos, Charlie Curnow
Doozy - Will Hayward, Ollie Florent, Isaac Heeney
Gravity Seltzer - Cooper Chapman, Matt Poole, Jenna Louise, Harley Clifford, Harry Bink
Ponting Wines - Ricky Ponting
Hey Diddle - Tom Jonas, Brad Ebert

Sports stars are in a unique position to achieve off-field business success.

Why?

1) Transferable skills

Many “soft skills” such as leadership, teamwork, communication, self-discipline and resilience are transferable from the sports arena to the business world.

2) Reach

They can utilise their own social media channels to generate reach, and their personal brand's to generate PR.

3) Social influence

Their personal profiles carry brand equity which flows through to their start-ups, providing a point of difference and competitive advantage.

4) Networking

Athlete’s often have access to professional networks that many others don’t, or can use their personal profiles to open doors to new partnerships that others can’t e.g. with other athlete’s, industry professionals.

5) Access to capital

Athlete’s often have capital to invest or greater ability to attract external investment.

Are side hustle's a good thing?

The NRL thinks so.

They've created an “Entrepreneur Of The Year” award, recognising those who’ve started, established and operate businesses alongside their playing careers. Josh Addo-Carr and Corbin Baxter were the 2023 award winners.

Do you know of any other start-ups worth noticing? Tell us here

In the lead up to the State of Origin, brands launched their new sponsorship campaigns, and one worth noticing is XXXX's 'Pride in your Origin' campaign

To mark the launch, XXXX floated super-sized cans that weigh 16kg, and are capable of carrying 15,000 litres of beer (equivalent to 160,000 standard drinks) above the Brisbane River.

The stunt earned XXXX extensive media coverage, including across Nine who are the National Rugby League broadcast partners.

In addition, XXXX has:

Released limited-edition cans that feature a unique number between 0-9, that can be used to showcase Queensland’s 447 postcodes
Launched a sales-driving competition that gives fans a chance to win $25k or a holiday with the Maroons by building their postcode using the above specially-marked cans

This isn't the first time the brand has used larger than life sized beer cans to leverage their sponsorship - last year they built giant 3D replica cans and placed them around town to reinforce that XXXX is the beer of choice of Queensland State of Origin fans.

XXXX are setting a high-standard in sponsorship strategy, activation and amplification

This is the third year that XXXX has run this highly successful sponsorship campaign across paid, owned and earned channels and it keeps going from strength-to-strength.

As a Queensland-centric beer brand that wants to own and reinforce this positioning, their is arguably no more powerful sports sponsorship than one with the Maroons.

The shared values & target audience, combined with the longevity of this partnership has delivered a strong association between the Maroons and XXXX, and watching the State of Origin series goes hand-in-hand with drinking XXXX for many fans.

The strong association also applies to players…

qldmaroons

A post shared by @qldmaroons

Also worth noticing is that flying giant objects in the sky has proven to be a popular way to grab attention:

1. In the lead up to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, adidas conducted a PR-stunt, using a helicopter to fly a giant replica of the official match ball through the skies of Sydney’s Harbour and iconic Bondi Beach

@sydneymorningherald Did you spot this addition to the Bondi skyline today? ⁠A giant replica of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup 'Oceaunz' match ball soared above Sydney before landing in Marks Park, which was transformed into a football pitch for the unveiling. #fifawomensworldcup #womensworldcup2023 #bondi #adidas #matchball #sydneyevents

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

2. The AFL (video below) and Juventus (video here) have both used Faux OOH on social media for giant-jumper unveiling’s over the top of iconic stadiums:

@afl South Australia, here we come 🚁 #afl #footy #gatherround