Why Port unveiled new sponsor at MCG

Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak with Port chairman David Koch, Chris Bayman of Renault and Port vice captain Brad Ebert during the announcement of Renault as Port Adelaide's new sponsor at the MCG. Picture: Blair Hamish Source: adelaidenow

THE Port Adelaide Football Club yesterday made its biggest announcement of the year on the MCG rather than in its heartland at Alberton. Michelangelo Rucci explains why.

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EVER since it entered the AFL in 1997 the Port Adelaide Football Club has been accused of living within a postcode: 5015.

The only suburban football club taken by the AFL for its national agenda, Port was seen stuck in its limiting Alberton traditions. The argument was for the 143-year-old Port Adelaide Football Club to grow - simply to survive let alone prosper - it had to change its name.

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Yesterday, Port changed its thinking. It went away from its traditional home at Alberton to, as new president David Koch calls it, "Australian sports' greatest stage ... the MCG" to announce a long-awaited and significant sponsorship deal.

Port Adelaide secure French car company, Renault, as their major sponsor for the upcoming season.

Port signalled it has looked further than just Australia to prove it can see beyond Alberton. It went as far as Paris to score a three-year sponsorship deal worth at least $1.5 million from French car maker Renault.

For the first time since 2009, when telecommunications giant Vodafone went away from the AFL to try car racing, the Power has a corporate backer with multi-national links.

Announcing the deal on the MCG was deliberate. It was a statement of intent from the new leadership at Port more than a marketing gimmick.

Although, as any marketing guru would say, such controversy on the location is never a bad thing to draw much-needed attention to a sponsorship deal.

Had the new Adelaide Oval been on the verge of hosting AFL football, the location of yesterday's announcement may have been on home soil.

Port Adelaide skipper Travis Boak and vice-captain Brad Ebert beside a Renault, as the carmaker is announced as the team's new sponsor. Picture: Blair Hamish

"This is a statement from us," says the Sydney-based Koch, the club's first president not to reside in Adelaide. "We're saying the Port Adelaide Football Club will not be restricted to the 5015 postcode. That has been our mentality in the past, but no more.

"We are a national organisation, a national brand playing in the biggest national sporting competition in Australia.

"We're proud of our roots, of our long history, of where we came from to be part of the AFL. But understand that we are determined to build this football club beyond Alberton, beyond Adelaide, beyond South Australia."

Koch has broken Port's suburban mentality ever since he walked into his family home at the Port Adelaide Football Club to become president late last year. He has co-opted board members who live in Melbourne.

He has set up advisory boards with big-hitting business leaders based in Sydney, such as News Limited chief Kim Williams.

Port Adelaide chairman David Koch leads captain Travis Boak vice captain Brad Ebert coach Ken Hinkley and Chris Bayman of Renault during the announcement of Renault as Port Adelaide's new sponsor. Picture: Hamish Blair

He had hoped to start the off-field revival of a football club that has been hit with financial woes and abandoned by Corporate Australia in the past three years with an Australian backer.

The deal with Renault began at the end of last year's AFL season in September when Power commercial chief Steve Olech walked into the car maker's Australian headquarters in Melbourne.

Olech was knocking on every corporate door he could find last year when Port offered up half its corporate space on its jumper to charity organisation Foodbank.

The reaction Olech scored from Renault was predictable: "Are you serious?" Port was still without a coach and tarnished by concerns for its long-term future.

"We had to sell our future  ... and our stability," said Olech.

That sales pitch continued yesterday when another international company met Port chief executive Keith Thomas met a multi-national's managing director at Alberton. Renault came to like the Port sales pitch because it met the car maker's marketing strategy of being different.

"They are a 'challenger brand' like us," said Renault marketing director Chris Bayman. "Like us, they want to have fun, they have competitive spirit, a never-say-die attitude and a vision for the future ... and they challenge convention."

The Power certainly did that yesterday by putting itself on the MCG rather than at Alberton. That broadening of the Port Adelaide footprint well away from postcode 5015 is far from finished.

"We want people outside of Adelaide to look at the Port Adelaide Football Club on the field and say, `I like the way they play'," said Koch.

"I want to bring back the swagger in the Port Adelaide Football Club and show it beyond Alberton.

"But most importantly I want us to justify having that swagger." 

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