Ok, but if a sponsor of a club considers themselves "local" to that club, why would they want exposure elsewhere? We're bombarded with the argument that there aren't enough sponsorship dollars in Sydney, and that NSW clubs can only attract sponsors front a limited NSW-centric pool of corporations, so with this in mind, how can a sponsor such as a building and development company on the northern beaches (for example) benefit from increased exposure into Perth or Melbourne or Brisbane or Auckland?
If his argument, however, is that there are more opportunities for new teams in those locations, then I'll ask again, how does this benefit "every club"?
You can't have it both ways - either it benefits all clubs, by virtue of the fact that it really doesn't matter where the sponsors come from, meaning that there is no problem with the sponsorship pool in NSW, and adding another NSW team will not cause any problems to other current clubs. Alternatively, adding a new qld team inherently benefits that team above other existing clubs by way of offering them virtually unchallenged TV exposure (and doesn't benefit existing clubs' exposure levels at all, as claimed above).
Which is it?
Sponsors pay for market reach. Depends on the sponsor what their market is. So you are right in that small/local sponsors won't be able to or willing to pay more.
There was an article in a newspaper about 2 years ago talking about how one of the indirect effects of the AFL expanding in NSW and Queensland was that it improved the market reach of club sponsors, and there would be an improvement in sponsorship value.
So sponsors like NRMA, St George Bank, Toyota, Harvey Norman, Steggles would be expected to pay more for the better reach.
This is currently a problem in NSW, with 11 clubs (including Canberra) fighting for the same sponsors with the same market reach, where their main revenue source is a result of free to air TV exposure.
Only so many can get on TV each week, and when the game usually wants to show interstate games each week to tap into other markets it makes it hard.
Take Canberra, its main sponsor is worth something like $700,000 per year, $400,000 to $500,000 less than say a club like St George or Canterbury. Yet Canberra still can't find a sponsor because they are never on TV. Cronulla and Penrith are in a similar position.
Now, what if we expand in NSW and it becomes 12 clubs competing for no extra free to air spots? That pie gets cut even smaller, and the games reach isn't improved.
The advantage of a Queensland club is that it provides content into Queensland, especially Brisbane, every week. There are big sponsors that might be interested in sponsorship but can't because the market is exclusively the Broncos. Take a rival for NRMA, WoW and so on. Let alone companies like QR National, Suncorp, et cetera.
Interesting that you bring up the Warriors, whos major sponsor is Vodaphone. Telstra very stictly control the communications sponsor rights to the NRL, yet they don't apply in NZ. Which allows the Warriors to have a lucrative deal with a big communications company.
And often with sponsors it has nothing to do with the team being sponsored. Take GWS. No one gives a Karmichael Hunt about GWS. Yet they managed to get a big sponsorship deal with Skoda. Why?
Because Skoda's advertising campaign for 2012 is aimed at improving market penetration nationally in Australia. It sees an AFL sponsorship as the best way to achieve it along with a TV commercial campaign.
They get some attention in Sydney because GWS is new and in the press, and they get huge attention in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.
EDIT - and it will work too. Skoda will likely sell more cars in 2012 than in 2011.
These financial drivers are why we didn't see Tasmania or the Bendigo Bumwarmers win expansion in the AFL. The same forces and presures are at work in our game.
This is why Perth and Brisbane are very much the favourites for expansion. Doesn't matter how good the Bears bid is, it simply can't compete on these issues.
