Australian national women's rugby team the Wallaroos named Buildcorp its first ever naming-rights sponsor and announced that the team "will play two tests against New Zealand Black Ferns in New Zealand in October along with a tour game against Auckland," according to Roy Ward of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. The sponsor will also support the Women's National Championships later this month as part of the two-year deal. The second test "will be played as a double-header at Eden Park" with the Bledisloe Cup game between the Wallabies and All-Blacks on Oct. 22. Wallaroos flanker Shannon Parry said that she was "blown away to find out about the sponsor and the games." She said, "To get the recognition, support and investment of a company as big as Buildcorp could do amazing things for our sport" (SMH, 6/15). THE SPORTS CAMPUS reported under the two-year partnership arrangement, "the Buildcorp logo will adorn the Wallaroos' playing jersey," and the company will have naming rights for the team and Women's National XVs Championships. Through these partnerships, Buildcorp "now has a presence" at grassroots, state, national and int'l levels of rugby. The company's rugby partnerships range from women's and men's university rugby teams in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, to the Buildcorp National Rugby Championship, and now the Buildcorp Women's National XVs Championships and the Buildcorp Wallaroos (THE SPORTS CAMPUS, 6/15). In Sydney, Glenda Korporaal reported Buildcorp co-Founder Josephine Sukkar, who was made president of Australian Women’s Rugby last August, "is keen to encourage more corporate support for the women’s game." Sukkar argues that corporations should think more rationally about sponsoring women’s sport "as she believes they can often get far more value out of their sponsorship dollar than with men’s sport" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 6/12).
