Telstra partners with Netball Australia
Telstra has partnered with Netball Australia, which will see the telco broadcast games on its Telstra BigPond media platforms.
The announcement:
Netball Australia today announced a new partnership with Telstra that will bring Australia’s second most participated team sport to a wider audience than ever before by broadcasting major netball games on Telstra’s BigPond media assets, and bolster their bid for the World Netball Championships in 2015.
Telstra’s sponsorship extends to the end of 2012 and will see a range of games including the ANZ Championship and Diamonds’ Test matches streamed online, including on Telstra T-Box and other IPTV services.
Telstra have lead the way in Sports Sponsorship over the past decade. They like to change the partnerships from Sport to Sport and still have residual effects from their efforts. eg They left the ‘Telstra Dome’ sponsorship several years ago, yet the stadium is still referred to it by the public and they have an affinity with the stadium and the sponsorship.
They’ve also recently left the Swimming Australia sponsorship and have obviously put those funds in to the Netball Australia partnership. Yet they will get years of leverage (particularly coming in to an Olympic Year) as the ‘Telstra Dolphins’ tag will still remain with the swimmers.
I think that Netball is an interesting choice though, they left the Swimming Sponsorship because they didn’t need any more exposure (after all, they send out 5 million bills each month with their logo on it) but I think they are trying to become socially responsible in the community, supporting women in sport and being one of the driving forces between equality in the wider community….thoughts?