Sponsors secured for NRL bid
THE WESTERN Corridor NRL bid team has all but secured a naming right sponsor to go with its apparel sponsorship deal.
Both companies, which cannot yet be named, are multinationals who have been impressed by the proposed community-owned club structure of the Western Corridor bid and its business plan.
Nothing can happen with expansion until the independent commission runs the game and the next TV rights deal is secured.
But the bid team has not been sitting on its hands.
"We've had a good meeting with a naming rights sponsor and that is 70% agreed with a multinational company," bid chairman Steve Johnson said.
"As soon as there is certainty brought into the game and the expanded television rights are known it makes it easier for this company to put pen to paper because they'll know what they are going to get in 2015. We've also got our apparel sponsorship done with a quality, international company."
Johnson is set to hold a meeting with UQ to talk about what the university can do to assist the bid.
"In the model of our club the person is as important as the player," he said.
"Any player is one injury away from being unemployed as a player. We need to make sure that their spare time is used wisely in the community or in educating themselves to better themselves. We are very fortunate that we have found a potential partner in the University of Queensland that is ready to assist our players."
These involve educational pathways that marry into the Western Corridor's academies.
"If we bring a country kid down from Toowoomba they can still go to the UQ campus at Gatton, live in a country environment and still achieve their NRL dream."
