Royal London to Title Sponsor ECB’s One Day Cricket Matches

Royal London has announced a partnership with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) that will allow the UK’s largest mutual life and pensions company to headline sponsor England’s one-day cricket at international, county and recreational levels from 2014.

As part of the deal, Royal London will sponsor forty ODI matches over four years against Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa. They will also title sponsor the Women’s ODIs, One Day Cup, National Club Championship and Junior County Cups.

Royal London has six million customers, and recently announced a new strategy which will see each of its 11 existing brands migrate to its Royal London masterbrand.

The ECB’s vision of game-wide title sponsorship for each format has now come to fruition with Royal London sponsoring all one-day cricket, Investec sponsoring Test cricket, NatWest sponsoring all T20 cricket and LV= backing the County Championship.

David Collier, ECB Chief Executive, said: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome Royal London as our newest commercial partner. Our commercial and broadcast deals provide the foundation and long-term stability for our investment in cricket from the playground to Test arena, and this deal is further proof of cricket’s popularity in England and Wales.

“The public’s appetite for one-day cricket remains extremely high with international sell-outs every summer and the recent success of the ICC Champions Trophy is also testament to the format’s strength.

“It is fitting that I take this opportunity to thank our previous county one-day cricket partners Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank for their support since 2005.”

Phil Loney, Group CEO of Royal London, said: “Cricket is a very British sport, we are a very British company and we are pleased to be working in partnership with the ECB to help them develop one-day cricket at an international and domestic level. As a mutual, we are particularly pleased to be helping them sustain local communities through the grassroots development of the sport.”