United Rugby Championship Appoint Turnstile

Turnstile are pleased to announce that they have been appointed by the United Rugby Championship (URC) to provide fair market price sponsorship valuation services.

The appointment by the URC, which was recently rebranded from the Guinness PRO14, means that Turnstile’s valuation approach and data is now being used to value an overwhelming number of Rugby’s most premium rights holders including The British & Irish Lions, the All Blacks, Rugby Australia, South African Rugby Union (SARU), Super Rugby, Premiership Rugby and European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR).

Since launching in 2018 Turnstile has valued hundreds of sponsorship deals, worth over USD $2.0 billion, and supports many of the world’s most progressive rights holders, brands and investors. Within this, Rugby is proving to be a strong area of expertise for Turnstile.

Turnstile was built to provide both sponsorship buyers and sellers with unrivalled insight into the actual market value, or recommended transaction price, of global sponsorships.  Underwhelmed by traditional approaches to valuing sponsorship, Turnstile believed that the industry required a valuation approach that was holistic, transparent and realistic.

Turnstile’s approach is premised on delivering holistic, fair market price valuations by quantifying the three key components of sponsorship value: Benefits, Exposure and Intellectual Property.

Martin Anayi, Chief Executive Officer at URC, explained that they were looking for an approach that provides powerful and transparent insight into the fair market price of their sponsorship assets whilst also capturing the value to partners of associating with the most global club rugby league:

“The last few years have seen monumental change for the URC. Not only have we rebranded but we have also welcomed the top four clubs from South Africa into the league and struck new broadcast arrangements that will substantially increase our reach and engagement. We felt Turnstile was uniquely positioned to help us capture, quantify, and transparently explain the true value of this transformation from a sponsorship perspective. Their experience across the global rugby landscape, their approach and their insight into the actual market rates being paid for sponsorship will be invaluable to us. With a fan base that spans many of the world’s leading rugby markets, we were also keen to ensure that we are able to capture the value of our Intellectual Property and Turnstile exemplifies this.”

Dan Gaunt, General Manager of Turnstile, said:

“We’re thrilled to be supporting the URC and this appointment is another powerful example of how the innovators in the industry are increasingly looking for more sophisticated approaches to sponsorship valuation that look beyond pure media exposure. The URC will also be using Turnstile’s proprietary Dealmaker software, meaning they will be able to use the outputs of the work to model new deal valuations in real time at the click of a button.”