Setanta Sports has unveiled an innovative new marketing partnership with London Irish rugby club. The partnership will focus on Setanta’s use of London Irish players in the promotion of their coverage of the Aviva Premiership in Ireland. Setanta will use key London Irish players in weekly syndicated media content across a number of Irish media platforms.
The deal is indicative of the blurring lines that exist between media platforms, especially in the field of sport. Today FM’s coverage of the Premier League is sponsored by Sky Sports and Brian O’Driscoll will within the coming weeks be seen as an expert on both Newstalk and BT Sport.
Newspapers have become much more than newsprint and the final picture taken at yesterday’s launch of the Bank of Ireland Leinster Rugby sponsorship was of Jamie Heaslip, Sean O’Brien and Rob Kearney reading their copy of the paper, part of another partnership arrangement.
Using the London Irish players to support the Setanta Sports Pack will be part of a big push to extend coverage of Rugby beyond the support for the Irish provinces and broaden the appeal of the Aviva Premiership which will have 69 games broadcast live on BT Sport through Setanta this season.
“London Irish have season ticket holders based in 14 of the 32 counties in Ireland and we enjoy a strong base of support throughout Ireland,” said Jim O’Toole, Commercial Director of London Irish. “This partnership will help reinforce our marketing and communications to existing and new audiences as we continue to re-engage with our Irish roots.”
“We are delighted to be associated with London Irish,” added Brian Quinn, Marketing Operations Director for Setanta Sports. “They are the Aviva Premiership team that Irish rugby fans should be most interested in following and we are keen tap into that over the coming seasons.”
London Irish take on Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins in their first game of the new season on Sept 6th at 16.30 and that game is live on BT Sport 1.
Setanta Sports, RTÉ Sport and BT are among the many sporting and business leaders actively involved in our Sport for Business community.
