VODAFONE will be unveiled as the white knight of the Kangaroos, after the telecommunications giant agreed to a two-year naming rights sponsorship deal with of the club worth almost $2 million.
The deal has been personally negotiated by newly-installed Kangaroos chairman James Brayshaw, who has been in contact with Vodafone over the past four months.
A verbal deal was agreed to in the days before this year’s AFL grand final, but the global telecommunications giant wanted confi rmation that the club would not accept the AFL’s offer to relocate to the Gold Coast.
At the end of last season, Vodafone walked out of its two-year deal with St Kilda, citing dissatisfaction with access to star players as one reason.
Due to the AFL’s deal with Telstra, Vodafone cannot broadcast match highlights to its three million customers, but it can provide interviews with players and behind-thescenes content from the clubs it sponsors.
As St Kilda co-captain Luke Ball had a pre-existing sponsorship to be one of Telstra’s sporting “ambassadorsâ€