RFL score highly in raising awareness for Sport Relief

The Rugby Football League have revealed that the sport was the third most recognised brand backing Sport Relief this year.

They sit behind Sainsbury’s and British Telecom (BT), who were the official partners of the fundraising charity selling official merchandise and providing call centre support respectively.

The data was collected based on how much awareness each company or sporting governing body gave Sport Relief in March 2012, and the RFL beat all other British sporting governing bodies including Premiership Rugby.

In March Super League raised awareness for Sport Relief in round eight by providing Sport Relief balls, referees wore Sport Relief kits and all the players wore knee length red Sport Relief socks.

The RFL’s head of partnerships and community projects, Chris Rostron, explained how this was done and what was achieved.

Rostron said: “Sport Relief highlighted a really interesting stat for us in the sense that, we’re working with their corporate partners and other sporting governing bodies.

“As part of the arrangement they track how the partnership is working. Incredibly in brand recognition and sporting recognition, rugby league scored third in their measure of media presence.

“We had features on Brazilian TV, features in women’s magazines, and web presence across the country. All of that brigaded together in stats, highlighted just how successful rugby league and its community can be in a charitable context.”

As a result of the hard work that the RFL put into helping Sport Relief achieve its aims in fund raising, Sport Relief will themselves fund community projects which will be delivered by professional club charities and foundations across the country.

Rostron believes the partnership between the RFL and Sport Relief will continue to grow when the next Sport Relief campaign is launched in 2014.

He said: “The key message from us is that we are delighted to be working with such a significant community supporter in this country.

“For Sport Relief their aspirations for the campaign is how can we generate more funds to assist their critical work, and as a sport we are delighted to be assisting them with that.

“The more success we can bring to the project we hope that partnership will grow as a result.”

Sport Relief has raised over £62 million this year helping deprived communities across the country come together through sport.

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