The Week in Sportbiz: QBE’s bold Six Nations call, and Euro shutdowns spell doom for ‘let fans back in’ push
England may be hot favourites to win the Six Nations this weekend, but not everyone agrees.
Insurer QBE is tipping Ireland to triumph — an outcome currently attracting odds of 3/1 with most bookmakers and even bigger prices on exchanges.
It is a bold call, especially as QBE itself predicted England would take the title on the eve of the tournament in January.
The company’s so-called supercomputer has a mixed record with Six Nations tips. Last year it forecast Ireland to win, only for them to finish third.
QBE says its prediction is calculated by its “catastrophe planners”, who run 10,000 simulations of the tournament.
It applies the same techniques used to assess the likely impact of earthquakes and floods.
No word yet on whether it foresaw the major disruption to sport still having a catastrophic effect on the industry.
Major blow for ‘let fans back in’
Germany and Italy have dealt English clubs’ hopes of partially reopening football stadia a fresh blow.
MPs are set to debate the issue next month after a petition to let fans back into grounds attracted 200,000 signatures.
Just this week Manchester United chief operating officer Collette Roche renewed calls for a review of the ban on supporters.
But that looks doomed to fail after Germany reintroduced an order forbidding attendance of live sport on Wednesday.
That came a day after Italy took similar steps, in another savage blow to professional sport’s finances.
Liverpool follow United’s lead
Seven years after Manchester United showed the way, Liverpool have struck a naming rights deal for their new training ground.
The Premier League champions are set to move into the new facility, to be called the AXA Training Centre, in November.
Insurer AXA already sponsored Liverpool’s training kit. Standard Chartered remain main commercial partners, with front of shirt branding.
Pioneers United became the first Premier League club to sell sponsorship of its training ground, agreeing a £120m deal with AON.
Manchester City, Everton and Brighton’s training grounds are also named after existing sponsors.
Top that: EFL’s pizza deal
Papa John’s has signed up as title sponsor of the EFL Trophy in a move that will see it renamed the Papa John’s Trophy.
The EFL has a similar deal with Thai energy drink brand that sees the League Cup called the Carabao Cup.
With pizza and beverage sorted, that just leaves dessert. Over to you, EFL commercial team.