And as someone who knows a bit about how the shirts and other merchandise gets distributed after requests to the club by "Thousands" of individuals and organisations throughout the year I can only add they will be the 1st ones to admit that NOT ALL requests can be accepted however they do as much, if not more, than many other SL clubs in this area.

The guy in question has been picking for an argument at EVERY Fans forum I've been to (All of them) with IL or MH and even though I don't agree with every decision they make I understand that they have done, despite what people who will always find felt in EVERYTHING think, a fantastic job over the last couple of years getting Wigan on a more stable financial platform as a club.
This will allow us to build over the years and allow the club to run as a solid business model in the future rather than be a "Rich Man's play thing" and have everything underwritten only for said Rich man to bail out and leave us up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

And from a position of strength i.e Being involved in WCC matches, SL Grand Finals and CC Finals (Whoops sorry you havent been to many of them recently

) it would be the kind of deal that Wigan would be looking for as well.

Difference is Wigan haven't had that to use as a bargaining tool and also bear in mind when sponsoring Leeds/Wakefield they are promoting themselves to BIG CITY areas.

When with Whelan we were receiving no income through sponsorship and or Merchandise however Whelan was underwriting our losses in a way Year on Year.

We have had to come to terms with this in a short timescale at what is the most financially challenging time for attaining New sponsors etc in the last probably 50/60 years!

I'd rather us do moderatley low Year by Year sponsorships for the next couple of years and despite this still be breaking even (ish) on the accounts rather than tie ourselves in for the next 5 years and panic just to get some money in now.

In a back to front way of looking at this in some ways it's a promising sign that the club don't seem to feel the need to almost give their image rights away as the rest of the club seems to be on a solid footing?

from a couple of personal experiences, i would like to say that on the business of the club being inundated with requests for merchandise etc, for individual events, they would be runing at a loss if they accepted every request.

they do however have a once a month signing night, where if you buy a piece of merchandise ( a shirt for example) , you can hand it in a the club , or lottery office, and they will send it to the signing night.

we made £75 profit on a signed shirt a few months ago for my daughters fund raising for a different sport.
for this i am grateful to the club.

and folk who moan about not getting backing from the club for their own ends should just shut up.

what would you say to a sports shop sponsoring us? Like JD for example. They have shops nationwide and for the privilege of being on our shirts they could agree to stock our merchandise nationwide this would probably bring more fans and awareness about our club and make us some money to boot. It would also make it look like we're highly professional the countrys rugby team if you will.

Just an idea.

warburtons will be our sponsor aha

Quote ="sbohan"I do like the idea ROBINSON mentioned. Traditional sponsorship agreements are going to be hard to negotiate, I certainly hope the club is well into negotiations at this time. Seeing however we are hypothesising about possible sponsorship strategies, how about this one: We give smaller companies the chance to sponsor the shirt, these SMEs could really benefit from the added exposure and could really help increase revenue and job potential for a local company. Each entry to be considered for sponsorship is a set small fee, say £1000 - £2000. This figure needs to large enough to be significant but small enough to increase participation....................... '" Down here, each year, there is a balloon festival held in Bristol. This year, they couldn't find a single sponsor, so did pretty much what you are suggesting, setting up a 100 club, with tickests proced at £2000 each, in a lottery to become the main sponsor. This was eventaully won by Harvey Nicks, who I'm sure could have affordeded to sponsor it without the lottery, but never mind... Interestingly, the value of the sponsor package for this festival is placed at £120k, for a single weekend event. Has anyone from Wigan actually heard of the event? Seems like £80k for a years sponsorship of a "top" Super League team, with lots of coverage is woefully short of the mark. However, 100 tickets sold for £2k each would bring in £200k, and this would seem to be a more realistic figure. There could be something to learn from the festivals promotion.... www.bristolfiesta.co.uk/content.php?pid=45

Quote ="sbohan"I do like the idea ROBINSON mentioned. Traditional sponsorship agreements are going to be hard to negotiate, I certainly hope the club is well into negotiations at this time. Seeing however we are hypothesising about possible sponsorship strategies, how about this one: We give smaller companies the chance to sponsor the shirt, these SMEs could really benefit from the added exposure and could really help increase revenue and job potential for a local company. Each entry to be considered for sponsorship is a set small fee, say £1000 - £2000. This figure needs to large enough to be significant but small enough to increase participation....................... '" Down here, each year, there is a balloon festival held in Bristol. This year, they couldn't find a single sponsor, so did pretty much what you are suggesting, setting up a 100 club, with tickests proced at £2000 each, in a lottery to become the main sponsor. This was eventaully won by Harvey Nicks, who I'm sure could have affordeded to sponsor it without the lottery, but never mind... Interestingly, the value of the sponsor package for this festival is placed at £120k, for a single weekend event. Has anyone from Wigan actually heard of the event? Seems like £80k for a years sponsorship of a "top" Super League team, with lots of coverage is woefully short of the mark. However, 100 tickets sold for £2k each would bring in £200k, and this would seem to be a more realistic figure. There could be something to learn from the festivals promotion.... www.bristolfiesta.co.uk/content.php?pid=45

My first post!

Not sure where you got the 80k figure from but having done some work with a competitor of Mecca's, I think the figure was around £230k for 12 months.

Saints New Home shirt unveiled.

Obviously they have cursed some sponsors in the past, and lost Pilkington's in the off season.

Netherless, the kit carries five sponsors + Puma. I am also when negotiating the main sponsor they prioritised the best deal over biggest name.

If I had any decent amount of money i'd pay for the sponsorship on the understanding there is not to be a sponsor on the front of the shirt.