The All Blacks, with Altrad branding on their jersey, line up to perform the haka. Photo / SmartFrame
Now that a new broadcast deal has been struck, New Zealand Rugby is focusing on its other most significant renewal project – the sale of the All Blacks front-of-jersey naming rights.
But the process of finding sponsors – new or existing – to purchase long-term rights to the All Blacks kit from 2028 hit a road bump this week when the man leading the project, Yarnie Guthrie, unexpectedly resigned.
Guthrie is general manager commercial of New Zealand Rugby Commercial [NZRC] – the company that was set up in 2022 to house the game’s revenue generating assets – and ran point on the two deals this year that saw Toyota and United States insurer Gallagher replace Ineos on the All Blacks’ kit after the British petrochemical company quit its six-year commitment halfway through the agreement.
Both Toyota (back of shorts) and Gallagher (training gear) were signed through to the end of 2027 to ensure that their respective commitments expire at the same time as the front of jersey sponsor, Altrad.
And while all three of the current kit sponsors have a further 28 months to run on their existing commitments, NZR is hoping to secure new agreements by the end of next year or early 2027.
That may seem like ample time, but Guthrie will depart in December, and after he leaves, NZRC will have limited senior personnel because it has been operating without a dedicated chief executive since Craig Fenton parted ways with it last November.
NZR will soon begin the search for a new chief commercial officer – a role that will effectively replace the previous one of chief executive of NZRC – but may not have a candidate behind the desk before March next year, given the probable timeframe of first finding the candidate and then extracting them from their current role.
The search for Guthrie’s replacement is unlikely to begin until the CCO has been appointed, thus losing a considerable period in which to identify suitable partners with strong brand alignment, benchmark asset prices against other global sports brands, build relationships with key personnel and advance negotiations to near completion stage.
And the importance of this kit renewal is significant in the context of NZR being able to make the sort of quantum leap in total revenue it forecast would happen by agreeing to sell an equity stake in its assets to US fund manager Silver Lake.
Silver Lake came on board promising to dramatically change NZR’s revenue profile, but the reality of the national body’s balance sheet is that nearly all its major income sources are locked into long-term agreements.
Opportunities to make material change in income flow only come up infrequently, and one of those was the new broadcast agreement reached last week for the 2026-2030 cycle, which – once the international components are finalised – is expected to produce only a modest lift on the circa $100 million NZR currently banks in media rights.
The sale of the All Blacks kit naming rights is the only major opportunity on the horizon for Silver Lake to prove its commercial expertise and justify the partnership with NZR.
The existing contracts attached to the All Blacks kit are estimated to be worth around $70m a year in total, with French construction services company Altrad believed to be paying €24m a year ($50m) and Toyota and Gallagher about $10m a year each.
NZR is understood to be targeting a significant lift on the current value and hoping for $100m a year in naming rights – either sold entirely to one partner or split between two or three.
While a renewal agreement with Altrad has not been ruled out, the decision to replace Ineos with Toyota and Gallagher was a deliberate strategy to work with consumer brands and shift away from relationships with companies that operate only business-to-business.
It is also understood that NZR has a reduced appetite to partner with businesses that are majority-owned by one individual – Altrad is owned by French billionaire Mo Altrad – following the difficulties that arose working with Ineos’ billionaire owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
The other deterrent working against a renewal with the construction services firm is that Mo Altrad was found guilty of bribery and corruption charges in 2022, which related to his acquisition of naming rights to the French national jersey.
But given how quickly NZR managed to find reputable replacement sponsors for Ineos, the evidence is strong that the All Blacks brand continues to hold global sway and is an attractive entity for offshore corporations.
Guthrie, who is leaving to take up a yet-to-be-determined role in Europe, believes his successor will have two key advantages in securing improved deals for 2028.
Firstly, the previous process was conducted during Covid, when New Zealand was locked down, making it difficult to build relationships and advance discussions with potential partners.
And secondly, NZR has now invested in its own content hub – NZR+ – which is generating a wider audience for rugby content and creating a more compelling data set to be put in front of prospective sponsors about their likely level of exposure.
“We outperformed expectations last time by running a really wide and robust process and talking to a lot of brands and arriving at a half dozen in the final stages that were serious contenders,” says Guthrie.
“[It is] always a priority looking to partner with world-leading and desirable brands. About 70% of the sponsorship market is actually B-to-C brands [business to consumer], and in a global sense that has probably been a challenge for us because in the past, rugby doesn’t generate enough eyeballs compared with our big competitor set, which is football and Formula One.
“The creation of our content platform and digital channels to create those eyeballs for ourselves is exactly why we think we will be in a better place to attract more consumer brands.”
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.