Edinburgh's bid to attract corporate investment

Published on Monday 2 November 2009 22:00

CROWDS are up, results on the pitch are improving and now Edinburgh are looking to attract more corporate investment as they aim to take the club to the next level.

Sunday's disappointing 9-8 Magners League defeat to Newport Gwent Dragons at a rain-soaked Murrayfield was watched by just 2,066 spectators, but that failed to dampen the enthusiasm of Edinburgh chief executive Nic Cartwright yesterday as he outlined an ambitious vision for the future development of the club.

In home matches against Leinster, Ulster and Munster this season, Edinburgh have generated crowds of over 5,000 – a club record for the team in the professional era – as the public appear to be responding to a higher quality product.

Edinburgh have enjoyed back-to-back top-four finishes in the Magners League and have begun this campaign in promising fashion.

While still modest when compared to the major clubs in England, Ireland, Wales and France, the crowds are a noticeable improvement on the situation Cartwright inherited when the SRU took control of Edinburgh back from the consortium led by brothers Alex and Bob Carruthers.

After the opening three games of the 2007/2008 season, Cartwright saw Edinburgh attract an average crowd of 1,375.

However, he isn't settling for increased revenue through the turnstiles and has set his sights on attracting greater corporate investment in a bid to make Edinburgh "a major force in European rugby".

Cartwright said: "The ongoing development of Edinburgh Rugby Club is still a work in progress, but we are proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years.

"On the pitch, we have achieved back-to-back record finishes in the Magners League with a young and predominantly Scottish squad.

"The foundations are now firmly in place for Edinburgh to move forward and we are really excited about the next phase in our development.

"There is a real ambition within our club and a determination to keep improving and to keep growing.

"In order to make this happen, we need to deliver on team performance, crowd growth and income generation.

"The team has been producing outstanding performances for some time now and the games against Bath in the Heineken Cup in December will be another chance to show we have moved on and the crowd results have been very promising.

"Where we need to show a further step forward is the generation of high-level corporate support.

"We have a good range of current sponsors, but many of our competitors are funded by a far greater range of income streams and we now need to start identifying these streams.

"We plan to pro-actively interact more with Edinburgh's substantial corporate market place with a view to both aid and speed up the club's development."

Edinburgh chairman Gavin Hastings echoed Cartwright's vision, and, despite the difficult economic climate, believes stronger business links will be forged in the near future. The former Scotland and Lions captain said: "Edinburgh is an affluent city and we are aiming to align ourselves closer with the city's business community. From what I can already gauge, Edinburgh's businesspeople are keen to engage with the team and we are looking forward to initiating mutually beneficial partnerships."

Meanwhile, for the team's next home fixture – against Bath in the Heineken Cup on Saturday, 19 December – Cartwright revealed that Murrayfield's East Stand would be open to cope with expected demand for tickets. He added: "Last year we had close to 8,000 for the home game against Wasps and the atmosphere was great. I believe we will have a larger crowd this season and, as a result, we will need two stands opened to cope with the likely demand.

"Edinburgh are well placed to end December with a chance to progress in the Heineken Cup. I urge supporters to get behind their team and purchase tickets as soon a possible."