THE ENGLAND Rugby team will be powered by Lucozade Sport and Maximuscle courtesy of a new four-year sponsorship deal between the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
The construction of the deal is likely to see much of the value provided in kind, with the supply of products to the RFU until 2016. As a result, Frontloaded values GSK’s annual cash input to the deal at a low-mid six-figure sum.
As well as the men’s elite team, the agreement will see the hydration and nutrition products available to the Saxons (England’s second team), Sevens and women’s national teams.
Having acquired Maximuscle from Maxinutrition in February 2011, the RFU deal marks the first collaboration between the two brands under the GSK umbrella.
With the sport’s national governing body having been brought into disrepute on a number of occasions before, during and after England’s untimely exit from the 2011 World Cup, whispers of sponsors’ unrest have been rife among sports media channels.
The RFU will hope the partnership with a company of the commercial stature of GSK, and a successful forthcoming Six Nations campaign, will eventually put paid to the negativity surrounding the off-field antics of English Rugby.