Steel Blue to kick some goals

Melbourne-based mobile phone retailer Crazy John’s (ultimately unsuccessful) bid for the naming rights to Subiaco Oval earlier this year stirred up mixed reactions among local residents and footy fans.

However, Footwear Industries’ purchase last month of the naming rights to WAFL club Swan Districts’ home ground (formerly Bassendean Oval) provoked a very different response.

Bassendean Oval has been rebadged Steel Blue Oval, after one of the company’s top safety boot lines. Footwear Industries director and former Swans and Eagles player Don Holmes said the club had received a lot of positive feedback in relation to the lucrative five-year deal, which is valued at $250,000.

“A lot of people who have grown up with the oval have rung up and said: ‘It is fantastic what you are doing, we love the name’,” he told WA Business News.

Mr Holmes said he believed people could see the link between Footwear Industries and the Swans, despite the club’s historic 60-year tie to Bassendean Oval.

Mr Holmes, together with two of Footwear Industries’ six other directors, Peter Carter and Ross Fitzgerald, are all former players and financial supporters at the Swans.

Mr Fitzgerald said that, while the decision took a little bit of convincing within the business, it was a great branding opportunity that worked both ways.

Advertising also features around the ground to capitalise on the eight million vehicles a year that pass Swans’ facilities on Guildford Road.

Mr Fitzgerald said he was a big believer in branding and this was a great way of getting the brand out into the public, as well as putting something back into the community.