The Sheffield Shield by no other name smells much sweeter

Aside from events – both good and less than ideal – on the field, July has already been a big month for Cricket Australia.

The big-ticket item was certainly the confirmation the Australia will host New Zealand in the inaugural day/night Test Match, to be played with a pink ball at the Adelaide Oval from November 27.

Then Ryan Harris pinged his knee again, which abruptly ended a wonderful career and immediately made us nervous about The Ashes. With good reason, as Cardiff proved.

With the Test schedule announced earlier in the month, last week saw confirmation of the rest of the Australian cricket summer. And like all good sporting media releases, it read like a freeway billboard.

They were all there. The Commonwealth Bank Test Series. The VB ODI Series versus India. The KFC T20 Internationals. The Commonwealth Bank Women’s International Series, featuring six home matches for the 50- and 20-over world champion Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars.

The Matador BBQs One-Day Cup, the Sheffield Shield, the KFC Big Bash League; all of them, all there in their corporate glory.

But hold up there a minute. The “Sheffield Shield”? Surely you mean the “Bupa Sheffield Shield”?

Well no, as a matter of fact.

When you look at the bottom of the media release page, the Bupa logo remains front and centre with all the other Cricket Australia Gold Partners, including Toyota, KFC, Asics, and Qantas. And the Bupa logo still adorns Darren Lehmann’s cap over there in England, and indeed, it’s all over the support staff kit.

But the trainspotters read it right, and some calls to Cricket Australia this week confirmed suspicions.

In 2015-16, the six Australian state First Class sides will be competing for… the Sheffield Shield.

After first becoming corporatised for the 1999-00 season, when the historic Shield made way for the Pura Cup, it returned a decade later on the insistence of Sanitarium, whereby it was officially known for a season or two as ‘the Sheffield Shield presented by Weet-bix’.

That was eventually shortened – presumably, ‘TSSPBWB’ didn’t make it any easier – to the Weet-bix Sheffield Shield, and in 2011-12, the bright blue Bupa logo took over, bringing with it the not overly helpful ‘#BupaSS’ hashtag.

So for the first time in nearly two decades, the Shield will have no corporate embellishments in 2015-16. Or not right at this very point in time, anyway.

A call and a couple of emails back and forth with Cricket Australia this week made a number of discoveries regarding the Sheffield Shield, and happily, none of them involved sudden shortfalls in domestic cricket development budgets.

The official explanation of the Bupa-less Shield this season is this:

“Bupa have moved their naming rights sponsorship to the Bupa National Cricket Centre to better fit with their ongoing business strategy. Cricket Australia recognises the changing needs of commercial partners and offers solutions to adapt to their business objectives. At this point the Sheffield Shield naming rights position is open,” their spokesperson explained to me.

It was also explained to me that all Cricket Australia sponsorship revenue essentially goes into one big pot, from which budgets and funds are created and distributed. The main message here being that despite the lack of naming rights, the financial distributions for the Sheffield Shield will not change from last season. So despite the ‘loss’ of sponsor, there is no financial or other implications for First Class cricket in Australia.

And I’ll admit that I breathed a little easier at this point. My initial fear was that one of Cricket Australia’s Gold Partners had effectively valued a training facility better for their brand than the development of future Test cricketers.

You could possibly still draw that conclusion if you wanted to, but Cricket Australia would counter with, “the Bupa National Cricket Centre is utilised at a state and national level for the development of players. The shift in naming rights sponsorship does not affect the level of support provided to the Shield competition.”

Additionally, the Cricket Australia spokesperson told me, “Domestic Cricket in Australia has never been in a stronger position than it is currently. Cricket Australia is committed to working with its commercial partners to ensure that their investment aligns with both the Australian Cricket Strategy and objectives and their relevant business strategy and objectives.”

And that’s all fair enough. The most important point in all this is that Cricket Australia are getting the same amount of revenue coming in, their corporate partner is happy with the realignment, and Shield cricket will carry on the same as it has in recent seasons.

In addition, while Cricket Australia is still open to securing naming rights for the Sheffield Shield, they have begun a process with the state bodies to review the sponsorship strategy around the Sheffield Shield and how this may work for the 2015-16 season. It may well be that the State major sponsors will be able to take up the front-of-shirt real estate. So yes, Queensland bowlers could be running in with ‘myFootDr’ emblazoned across their chest.

First Class cricket is obviously a crucial cog in the development of Test cricketers, and it would be a shame if this development was impacted by any loss or redirection of funds. It’s very good news that this is not the case.

And, if I’m honest, I don’t mind the sound of a plain old Sheffield Shield competition again.

Footnote: CA also confirmed for me that fellow Gold Partner Toyota will remain naming rights partner of the Futures League (Second XI) competition as part of their wider affiliation with Cricket Australia.