New Zealand Rugby chase $500m kit deal as war and oil crisis hit sponsors – Gregor Paul

The climate for chasing multimillion, long-term branding sponsorships could hardly be worse for New Zealand Rugby.

There is an oil supply crisis, massive geopolitical turbulence and major economic uncertainty – all of which is making its task of securing a hoped-for $500 million-plus, six-year All Blacks kit sponsorship package harder than anticipated.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) currently banks an estimated $70m a year from All Blacks kit sponsors, with Altrad believed to be paying €25m ($50m) a year to have its name on the front of the jersey, Gallagher thought to be paying around US$6m ($10m) for real estate on the back of the shorts and Toyota paying about the same to have naming rights to the training kit.

The package constitutes close to one-third of NZR’s total income, and while it doesn’t expire until the end of 2027, NZR needs to either renew or find alternatives by the end of this year to give apparel partner Adidas the lead time it needs to mass-produce the new kit for 2028.

This kit auction has long been targeted by NZR as an opportunity to materially lift its revenue and it is believed that it is hoping to secure a deal that will see the current $70m a year increase to between $90m-$100m a year.

It’s an ambitious target, but these long-term agreements are critical to get right as NZR’s accounts will carry the impact for the next six years.

But there is more to this transaction than money. Altrad, a French building services conglomerate owned by billionaire Mohed Altrad, has first right of refusal to renew.

Altrad is understood to have majorly outbid the competition in 2021 to secure the rights and is believed to have both the resources and desire to retain them.

However, Mohed Altrad is currently appealing corruption and bribery charges – his case is scheduled for September – while it is understood NZR has a strategic preference for a consumer brand to be the front-of-jersey sponsor.

NZR’s former general manager of commercial, Yarnie Guthrie, who was leading the renewal project, left his role in December last year, but is believed to have been building a relationship with Emirates.

The Dubai-based airline is a major sponsor of several high-profile football clubs such as Arsenal, Real Madrid and AC Milan, and it’s also a major backer of the Rugby World Cup.

In December last year, NZR is understood to have sanctioned both Ardie Savea and Wallace Sititi to take part in individual promotions with Emirates in Dubai – the airline also worked with England stars Henry Pollock and Guy Pepper and Scotland’s Blair Kinghorn.

It’s not known how far down the road – if at all – NZR has progressed with Emirates, but it is understood that the national body is determined to sign a major airline as a commercial partner.

It is unusual for a sports team with the global profile of the All Blacks to not have a deal with an airline, and it is believed Emirates and Qatar Airways, which both fly to New Zealand, have been courted.

Qatar Airways sponsored the one-off test between the All Blacks and the Springboks at Twickenham in 2023, but its ambition to partner with a major rugby asset has seen it enter discussions to spend $160m on the naming rights for the Nations Championship, which starts in July.

But the war in Iran and the Middle East is impacting both airlines and reports out of the UK have suggested that there are concerns among rugby executives that the Nations Championship deal with Qatar could now collapse.

And this is the crux of the issue NZR faces – the conflict in the Middle East has potentially made Emirates reluctant to make a significant investment in the All Blacks, while the rising price of jet fuel has compromised the airline sector more generally.

Airlines are by no means the only sector feeling the financial impacts of the war and the ramifications it’s having on oil supply, and so NZR – through no fault of its own – could hardly be trawling the market for half a billion dollars at a less opportune time.

To compound an already challenging outlook, the English Premier League’s (EPL) has agreed a self-imposed ban on front-of-jersey sponsorships with online betting firms.

More than half the 20 teams currently have gambling entities on the front of their jerseys and there are reports that as many as nine clubs are scrambling to find replacement sponsors before the 2026-2027 season, kicking off in August.

The All Blacks are very much swimming in the same commercial waters as EPL clubs, making the challenge of securing a significant financial uplift on the existing package a test of both the brand’s power and the sales instincts of newly installed chief commercial officer Chris Brown.

And so too is it another test of Silver Lake’s investment thesis. The US-based private equity firm bought into NZR in 2022, pitching a strategic master plan to build a content hub to better capture fan data, grow audience and build a suite of metrics to present to potential sponsors about how much brand exposure they can expect as a kit sponsor of the All Blacks.

The audience reach is then used to hike the value of sponsorships, but while the concept stacks up in theory, it didn’t deliver a significant uplift in domestic broadcast income when a five-year deal was agreed in August 2025.

If the sponsorship renewal is another swing and a miss, it will put pressure on Silver Lake to justify what capabilities it is bringing to the table and whether its presence is in fact adding any value.

That’s getting ahead of the game, though. The economic climate is compromised, but NZR snared both Toyota and Gallagher last year, barely four months after previous sponsor Ineos had unilaterally quit its six-year deal halfway into the agreement.