Oct
16

KP and Freddie leave as Woodworm gets eaten up by the Credit Crunch

Big news in the world of cricket equipment and sponsorship today as news that Pietersen and Flintoff have left their Woodworm sponsorship contracts has led to speculation that the company is soon to go to the wall in the tough current business environment. Both of the players were understood to have life time deals with the company, so for them to be allowed to break these agreements must mean that something is happening, even if no concrete news about Woodworm’s future is currently available.

Woodworm seemed to be quite a good marketing company, and I remember reading about how successful they had been a few years back (especially in the junior market), but I guess the profit margins just weren’t as high as they needed to be to survive the quieter months of the year when they were buying in the equipment from Hunts County. They are still essentially a UK brand, and the cricket market has a few too many “quiet” months in it, that I can imagine how it might be difficult if the summer doesn’t work out that well and enough money isn’t brought in.

I noticed their website about a week ago had a holding page which suggested they were about to build a new site, but maybe it was the other way round and it was the start of the decline. If they don’t manage to come out of this at all it’ll be a real shame as they have managed to build a brand in a short space of time, and with the Ashes next summer they would have been a lot of interest around them. Cricket is a good market to be in at the moment with all the growth in money available (for the players), and as a result press exposure (for everyone).

As we already knew, Adidas were releasing some cricket equipment soon, and KP becoming available now is probably the best timing they could have hoped for. Sign up the England captain and watch the sales fly in, it will happen..

October 16, 2008 // 2009 Cricket Equipment, Cricket Talk // 3 Comments //

3 Comments to “KP and Freddie leave as Woodworm gets eaten up by the Credit Crunch”

October 26, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Richard Gore says:

The cricket market is just not big enough to support such massive sponsorship payments – Adidas may well find out the same this year too, especially if the economic situation remains the same. It’s always sad to see a UK company go (if indeed they have gone) but Woodworm has been marketing based rather than a traditional bat maker, so when the profits dip the backers will look elsewhere for their profits.
October 27, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Rich says:

Hi Richard – my thoughts though are that Adidas won’t suffer in the same way at all since they have a huge corporation behind them that they can afford to “lose” money on sponsorship etc whilst trying to build themselves as an equipment brand and not just cricket shoes.

If you ask me, Woodworm – despite having some success, especially in the junior market – never really came across as a “serious” brand and I never considered their products either because of it and I wouldn’t be alone.
October 27, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Richard Gore says:

No company wants to loose money, but yes Adidas have a big pot to dip into. However at the end of the day if they are spending more on advertising than they are making on equipment sales the “experiment” will cease. Asics tried a few years ago on a smaller scale with Darren Gough (in his prime) but the bats never sold.
I too never regarded Woodworm as a serious brand but many people did, the first really big new company to jump in with cricket bats and suceed, well for a while anyway!!!