Bendat’s Wildcats go corporate

Amid an increasingly competitive Western Australian sporting landscape, one essentially community-based brand has stood the test of time, and now the Jack Bendat-owned Perth Wildcats hopes to reassert itself in the sporting market.

Mr Bendat, who took a controlling 70 per cent stake in the Perth-based National Basketball League franchise in March, made his intentions clear when he told WA Business News he “wouldn’t accept a team outside the top-four”. 

“The Wildcats are dear to me and I want to pick up the newspaper and read about the Wildcats on the back page,” he said. “We want to take the Wildcats from being a sporting team to being run like a business organisation, and we will be ramping up the corporate focus.”

The Wildcats recently began preparing for the upcoming season, due to tip-off in September, with the announcement of new assistant coaches, a new player and, of vital importance, the search for a new major sponsor – prepared to contribute in the order of $500,000 per year over the next three to four years.

The major revenue streams for the club are sponsorship and membership and, with a player salary cap of $670,000 and coaches salaries totaling $250,000, the need to engage a new naming rights partner is a major priority.

Previous major sponsor Oriant announced it would conclude its largely anonymous arrangement with the team and Mr Bendat is mindful of the need to find the right sponsorship match for the club.

“We want to do something different with the sponsorship and get a partner for the longer term,” he said.

“We want a WA focus with our sponsorship and believe that ‘fast moving consumer groups’ like motor vehicles, shoes or cereals represent a good fit, but it may be a mining company looking for exposure or a health care group looking for support.”

One of the names being mentioned as a major sponsor target is the soon-to-be merged StateWest Credit Union and Home Building Society. The new financial services group could potentially derive significant benefit from exposure via the Wildcats as it establishes its own brand.

The reach of the Wildcats is not insignificant.

Aside from its home court at Challenge Stadium, which seats 4,500, it has exposure to an Australia-wide television audience of 170,000 through the NBL’s deal with Foxtel, which sees the Wildcats get at least six games televised live each season.   

In addition, according to Mr Bendat there are 20,000 junior registered basketball players in WA and, being played in summer away from the spotlight of the AFL, the Wildcats generally receive good exposure from local media.

Wildcats chief executive Nick Marvin explained the club has 12 sponsorship assets, extending from the pre-game dancers’ uniforms to the players’ shirts.

“We are embarking on a new sponsorship regime and have brought Marketforce and Wright Media on board to help co-ordinate and drive our marketing and communications affairs,” Mr Marvin said. 

Marketforce will work with the Wildcats on positioning basketball and on developing the brand and its advertising, whereas Wright Media will be more involved in a hands-on role, taking the product to market and meeting with potential new sponsors.

In addition, the club further boosted its off-court team with the recent appointment of well-known WA executive J. Barrey Williams as marketing director.