The back of the envelope had three players with an Amart logo. Langford had the Fujitsu. When the envelope is fully opened, Merret has Amart, Durham has Fujitsu (Dreamtime).
But I’ve never taken notice of this stuff as to whether it is normal.
I’m also not sure when was the last time we wore a guernsey with Fujitsu on it so not sure where the Fujitsu photos came from.
Have never really taken much notice of the sponsor.
I’ve never taken much notice either, I just added it to the conversation. It’s a slow day.
Conspiracy: Leaving Amart off is conditioning the fans to accept the Reject Shop as our new sponsor.
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One might hope that seeing sponsors drop off, and thus affecting the bottom line, might show the club that continuing to be a pile of ■■■■ on the field is going to have a negative impact and they might finally start to be run like an actual football club again? Because we all know that the EFC cares more about money that just about everything else.
The Reject Shop isn’t woke enough to cause enough hysteria.
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Just to add my 2c on this… the asset isn’t necessarily devalued because it’s left to a single sponsor to ‘fill a void’ in sponsorship dollars. In fact it could be the exact opposite and the sole sponsor has agreed to pay the difference (or more) just to secure exclusivity of said asset. It’s not necessarily a bad outcome if there is context we are missing as people who - even as members - are FAR disconnected from really understanding anything material to do with this.
August 2021 was when the Fujitsu partnership was extended to 2025 (or at least, it was announced). There was probably an indication at this stage as to whether Amart would be likely to extend the sponsorship arrangement, or whether they could justify their investment (24 months in). Perhaps Amart was always intended to be a ‘one and done’ just to help embed their rebrand effectively within our region (Super Amart, anyone?). Fujitsu and EFC may have negotiated the extension with respect to this. Just a scenario that could have played out but purely speculating on one way it could’ve reached this outcome.
The question I have in response to all of this chatter - Is the simplification of the EFC commercial/sponsorship program what will allow them to have less competing or demanding stakeholders having an input and in turn allows the broader EFC team to focus more on footy-related outcomes instead of continually competing to satisfy key stakeholders like high investing sponsors and coterie groups?
Perhaps Amart was just not the right sponsor and didn’t align with the clubs values as expected. There are many reasons why they may not have renewed their support, and its not all bad and doomsday as some above are alluding to (time for a break!!). Perhaps we have another co-major sponsor waiting for the Amart term to expire before announcing anything? Who knows if there are any arbitrary boundaries written into those agreements…
I’m educated and I’ve worked in this field in a mostly ASC funded (tied to performance), under commercialised sport for over two years now and my experience so far is that sharing assets between sponsors is when things can get… unorganised and messy. It’s a pretty complex area of sport with many competing values and stakeholders, and very topical as I know first hand that fulfilling agreed sponsorship benefits can be extremely intrusive to those within the business with a number 1 priority strictly tied to performance. My number one priority is not the same as theirs (side note: this is great perspective related advice). However an organisation ‘pulling forward together’ should be very well balanced in their collective approach which is in turn lead from the very top. We hear this referenced continually by those AFL teams who do find success… “Every part of the club is just well oiled and works well together”…
Now purely from an outside perspective, to me the sentiment above is what I hope EFC are trying to work towards, but it’s not exactly easy…
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What John west rejects, Essendon accepts, no big fish here.
Amart are absolutely gone. The member pack clearly says on the card and the envelope that Fujitsu | Airstage is the major partner.
For comparison, last years says co-major partners and lists Amart.
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Agree 100%.
All good points.
By devaluing the asset, I meant in theory, giving front and back to Fujitsu but only getting an extra $1.5M from Fujitsu fir the ‘back’. In this case, they’ve solved the asset gap on the gurnsay but in doing so have only covered $1.5M of the $2.1M Amart contributed. That is, the jumper is now only generating $3.5M from its space…
Further, selling front and back makes commercial sense, it’s highly unlikely you’ll find any corporation wanting to put up $4M+ for the rights to the full jumper. I might be wrong but on this occasion it’s unlikely. I don’t believe there’s any Club in the AFL getting anywhere near this amount from one deal (Main partner).
Each sponsor is chasing different objectives. A club like EFC provides a national footprint, national ‘customers’ (fans), large social media database etc. it also provides access to the biggest Coterie network in the AFL if this is of value to them. But a sponsor msy want nation reach for brand awareness. It might be launching a new product and wants a popular national sports club to push it. It may want to grow share in its market, or just in Victoria. Who knows…
I don’t know what Amarts objectives were or what they were chasing. However, for all their cheap furniture which apparently nobody likes, or their ugly logo destroying our jumper, they did contribute $10M+ to our Club and we should all be very thankful they did as it’s more unlikely and likely we will secure the same $$$ in the next deal for Co-Partner (hope I’m wrong 
). And frankly, they possibly didn’t get from Essendon what they hoped (on field success - maximum outcomes etc)
Yeah sure but it’s all still a little speculative and lacking context.
The point I wanted to highlight to the average reader/fan is that dropping/losing Amart isn’t necessarily a bad outcome right now.
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I like it, have been waiting 5yrs for it to end. Cheap brand association, happy to have Fujitsu as the sole, I’m sure they would pay more for the additional brand exposure & attention too. Merch sales will rise too without Amart on the jumper and polos…it just sounds so cheap and looked terrible on all on/off-field merch.
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From a practical standpoint it makes sense to do this anyway.
Wearing white shorts against Collingwood and St. Kilda is just stupid. In both cases, it makes it worse.
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I wish it was that simple, it doesn’t usually pan out simply like that. If Fujitsu were contributing another $2M per year for sole rights, we’d likely know by now. As it is, we’ve lost $2M in forward revenue and we all hope they deliver a strong replacement, ideally with a nice logo and attractive brand…
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You’re probably correct in terms of they wouldn’t be forking out an extra $2M to be the sole major partner. The club has probably gone to them and said “if you kick in an extra $1M-$1.5M you can have exclusive sponsorship rights to the jumper and be our sole Major Partner”, and then we need to simply find another sponsor prepared to be the next tier down in terms of sponsorship and make up the shortfall that way.
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They’d be paying more to be on the front of the jumper instead of the back.
That’s about it.
I doubt they’d get front and back. I can’t think of a club that does this. Certainly not a Victorian one.
Don’t Ford have front and back on the Geelong jumper?
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I think they’ve had NIB on the back of theirs recently. Ford don’t have exclusive access any longer.
EDIT: Just saw they did have Fors front and back the last 2 years at least. But in the past they’ve had NIB there, maybe prior to Richmond getting them on board.
Good pickup.
For memory we still have Liberty just below the collar on the back.
What about an all red guernsey with thin black lines through it(super thin)
Or back themselves to make up the difference in other revenue stream - ie. merchandising which is likely more appealing as a result of this change.