Sky Sports signs wine brand as cricket sponsor
South African wine brand Namaqua is to be the broadcast sponsor of Sky Sport’s coverage of England’s tour to South Africa.
The sponsorship will feature Namaqua branding on opening and closing sequences, break bumpers and on-air promos.
Simon Halliday, managing director of Raisin Social, Namaqua’s UK importer, says the sponsorship provides an opportunity to associate the brand with a high-profile event in the winter sporting schedule.
Namaqua previously sponsored Sky Sports’ cricket coverage of the Twenty20 Cup in summer 2008
The sponsorship covers ball-by-ball live coverage, primetime highlights of each day’s play, live streaming on Sky Player and live 3G coverage of the tour on Sky Mobile TV.
The tour starts later this month and finishes in January. It includes four test matches, five on-day-internationals and two Twenty20 matches.
The deal was brokered by Nick Hoyle at Essentially and Stephen Ladlow Sky Media and the creative is being produced by Sky Sports.
News of the deal comes a week after Ofcom rapped Sky Sports for breaching UK product placement rules. The broadcast regulator ruled that the broadcaster had given “undue prominence” to the Specsavers brand every time the “Hawk-Eye” technology Ofcom said the technology should not be sponsored because it there to enhance the viewing experience.
