Nissan to kick goals with SuperCoach

NISSAN is the latest car-maker to announce a football-related sponsorship deal that will see it partnering with News Limited as major sponsor of the SuperCoach fantasy football league.

SuperCoach is an interactive fantasy football competition that allows users to select players for their own AFL or NRL team in the hope of winning prizes.

Under the sponsorship deal, Nissan will gain advertising opportunities and naming rights with the competition, which will be known as Nissan SuperCoach.

This year marks the first time that the same SuperCoach sponsor covers both AFL and NRL football codes.

The Nissan sponsorship will provide the competition with a Nissan Navara ute to give away.

Nissan Australia executive general manager of marketing Peter Clissold said the SuperCoach deal gave the Japanese brand an opportunity to market itself to a wider audience.

Nissan has had some involvement with football in the past, sponsoring both the AFL- and NRL-based Footy Show on Channel 9.

Nissan Australia press and public relations supervisor Chris Jordan confirmed that the Footy Show sponsorship would continue this year.

Mr Jordan said that the boom in fantasy football in the US and Europe meant that it was an easy decision for the brand to make in Australia.

“I think SuperCoach has been nothing short of a juggernaut over the last few years, to see that there is over half a million registered players last year across the AFL and NRL platforms and the engagement that that brings.

“Those people are logging in regularly, more than once a week, and not just on their computers at work but on their smartphones, tablets.

“There is a lot of two-screen viewing going on when they are watching the game on their phone as well as on the TV,” he said.

Mr Jordan said Nissan was doing things differently to other car-makers that sponsored teams by engaging fans of all 18 teams from the AFL with SuperCoach and the Footy Show, and not just fans of one team.

The Japanese car-maker’s tie-in with SuperCoach follows Holden’s announcement last month that it will return to football sponsorship after signing multi-million dollar deals with the National Rugby League and AFL club Collingwood.

Collingwood ended its 10-year partnership with Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus earlier this year, making way for local car-maker Holden to step in as major sponsor of not only the club but of head coach Nathan Buckley and his coaching team.

A number of car-makers already sponsor AFL teams including Hyundai (Carlton), Volkswagen (Sydney), Ford (Geelong), Kia (Essendon), Skoda (Greater Western Sydney), Opel (Melbourne) and Mazda (North Melbourne), while Toyota is the major sponsor of the AFL premiership season.