Basketball On The Internet.

LET’S be clear. New WNBL naming rights sponsor Wattle Valley is no fly-by-night mob but, in fact, Australia’s leading privately-owned food marketing and distribution business.

I just looked in the esky they sent me and found the very same wraps I have been eating for years – well, not the EXACT same ones, obviously … they’d be past the use-by date, but you know what I meant – and they are great.

If the quality of their products is an example of the quality of their sponsorship, then the WNBL should be offering hors d’oeuvres all around.

Forgive me for being just a tad cynical – “What? Vegemite wasn’t available?” jokes notwithstanding – but without any disclosure of the full commercial terms of the agreement being released, it can be a little worrying.

Is it a contra deal, with as much guacamole as the WNBLers can eat? And will small cuts of cabana be served with the cheese at all post-game functions?

After all, some of the deals Basketball Australia did on behalf of the NBL were heavily slanted to the sponsor and rushed breathlessly to the public as “landmark” when all they really were was hasty deals done to make it appear folks out there were jumping aboard the basketball express.

(Let’s not even talk about PERFORM, the ONE-Ten TV contract, the uniform deal, iiNet…)

But truth be told – and why don’t we try that occasionally, eh? – it’s not as if naming rights sponsors have queued up of late to take on our WNBL.

Poor product? Hell no!

Poor marketing? Well, the product has to at least be marketed to form an opinion if it was done well or poorly so let’s not even go there.

That said, Menora Foods, the parent company of Wattle Valley, is the WNBL’s first naming rights sponsor since about the time Lori Chizik was still playing and a young Darren Boyd marvelling at Lt Phil Brown’s heroics during Vietnam’s Tet Offensive.

Yes, it’s been a while.

Menora Foods is 100 per cent Australian-owned, employing more than 300 people nationwide. Its Wattle Valley brand will be incorporated into the title, logo and playing uniforms across all nine teams as the league’s official sponsor.

“Basketball Australia is very proud to have Menora Foods – a 100 per cent Australian-owned company – committing to one of the premier women’s professional sporting leagues in this country,” BA CEO Kristina Keneally said.

“Importantly, this is a crucial step forward in the push for more support from corporate Australia to back women’s sport with sponsorship dollars.

“Our partnership with Menora Foods will be a boon for the WNBL, allowing us to create more opportunities for girls and young women to develop the skills and abilities that can turn aspiring athletes into future female leaders – an investment which cannot be underestimated.”

Wake up!

Sorry. Just wanted to make sure you were still with it, dear reader.

It’s unconfirmed as yet but I hear ABC-TV games now will have a special “Wattle Valley Time-Out” per quarter for viewers to sit back and enjoy something from the company’s fine array of products. I recommend the cheeses.

WNBL media man Max Bennett is especially high on the capsicum dip.

Australian Sports Commission Chair John Wylie was pleased too that Menora Foods had jumped aboard the WNBL gravy train, although, in future, that is now the “dips and dairy train.”

“We have a number of highly successful female sporting competitions, teams and individuals in Australia presenting enormous opportunities for corporations to support through sponsorship,” Wylie said.

“Our women’s basketball teams have a well-deserved reputation for excellence through the success of the Opals and the strength of the domestic WNBL competition.”

Thank you.

“Menora Foods is extremely proud to be one of the first Australian companies putting significant corporate support behind women’s sport in what is also our first major sponsorship deal,” Menora Foods Managing Director Sam Schachna said.

“As ASC Chair John Wylie has rightly pointed out, women’s sport is a rising force and there’s no better example of that than the WNBL, which has produced some of the biggest female stars in Australian sport.”

The partnership between the WNBL and Menora Foods will reach its use by date at the completion of the 2015-16 season.