Industry Shorts: Pulseroll, Wimbledon, BBC

Anthony Joshua has announced a new investment in Manchester-based percussion muscle therapy and recovery brand, Pulseroll. 

Joshua, who has been using Pulseroll’s full range of vibration massage devices for nearly five years, will also join the company’s Board of Directors in an advisory capacity.

The move marks the second time Joshua has invested in a company in recent weeks, having become a shareholder in CBD brand Love Hemp. READ MORE

The LTA and The AELTC will come together to celebrate ‘National Thank You Day’ on Sunday 4th July by staging ‘Middle Sunday Opened Up’ – a free tennis activity on the public tennis courts in Wimbledon Park, held on the Middle Sunday of Wimbledon.
 
The event aims to use tennis to bring the local community in Merton and Wandsworth together, as well as supporting the LTA’s vision to ‘open up’ the sport and its benefits to many more people.
 
The free event will run from 9am to 5pm, and will provide ‘fun, informal and inclusive opportunities’ for anyone to pick up a racket and have fun playing tennis, including sessions for all levels and for both children and adults, provided by a combination of coaches from the LTA, the local community, and the AELTC’s Wimbledon Junior Tennis Initiative. 

The BBC has unveiled its plans for coverage of the inaugural The Hundred campaign.

Starting on 21 July, Isa Guha will lead the coverage across BBC TV, joined by Michael Vaughan and Phil Tufnell on commentary duties, as well as T20 World Cup hero Carlos Brathwaite and England Captain Heather Knight, While, The Tailenders podcast trio Jimmy Anderson, Greg James, and Felix White will also offer their take on the action.

The BBC will show 18 live games in total starting with the opening game from the women’s competition, as well the the first game of the men’s competition the following day on 21st and 22nd July.

BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra will also provide coverage of the competition, while The Hundred players Alex Hartley, Tymal Mills, Lauren Winfield Hill, Steven Finn and Heather Knight will also add post-game thoughts.

The construction and engineering, automotive, and financial services sectors have all overtaken the gambling industry as the most prevalent sponsor across professional football, rugby and cricket teams in England, according to new research carried out by commercial and sponsorship intelligence agency caytoo.

The study by sponsorship intelligence firm caytoo analysed the single main sponsor of 221 teams which revealed that construction & engineering firms now account for 11.2% of the sponsors, followed by automotive (9.4%), and financial services (8.5%) firms.

Gambling – which caytoo says held top spot two years ago – has seen its share across all the sports drop almost in half from 15.3% to 8.1%. The drop is driven entirely by football, where gambling’s share has dropped from 32.7% to 15.2%.

However, gambling firms still remain football teams’ most prevalent sponsor, whereas financial services is the most dominant vertical in rugby, with automotive and construction & engineering leading the way in cricket.

Halfords has ‘gifted’ a ‘million-pound’ wind tunnel in Manchester to British Cycling, which will see GB athletes at all levels use the facility.

The wind tunnel – conceived by Olympic gold medallist and incoming Chair, Sport England, Chris Boardman – is ‘one of the most advanced in the world’, according to British Cycling, and will be relocated to the Manchester Institute of Health and Performance on the Etihad Campus.

The new facility, which is set to be operational by the end of 2021, will provide support for British athletes preparing for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the first ever combined UCI Cycling World Championships which will be held in Scotland in 2023 and the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. The wider cycling community, cycling-related education programmes and equipment development and research teams can access the tunnel to support British cycling at all levels.

Halfords will continue to be associated with the facility, utilising it for product research and development and customer events.

Gloucester Rugby has confirmed a new long-term partnership with blister plaster brand Compeed.

The brand will become the naming rights partner of the club’s terrace, The Shed, as part of the deal, the home of the club’s most passionate fans, will become known as The Compeed Shed.

In addition to the naming and branding rights, which includes prime site TV advertising exposure, the Compeed brand will feature on the teamwear kit used by the first team squad for warm-ups on match days as well as on physio and medical staff bibs and water bottles used by the players.

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