As the British & Irish Lions continue their long-anticipated 2025 tour of Australia, Wasserman has been working alongside the iconic rugby organisation behind the scenes to ensure the commercial operation runs smoothly.
The global sports, music and marketing agency is the exclusive commercial agent for the Lions Tour, a role that has seen it work hand-in-hand with the Lions and Rugby Australia to build a compelling commercial program for partners. With over 25 partners, it is arguably the most commercially successful Lions Tour in history.
Visiting Sydney this week from the UK, Matt Vandrau, President, EMEA & APAC, joined by Peter Jarmain, VP, Australia & APAC, spoke to B&T, sharing insights into the playbook behind the Tour’s success and how the agency is scaling in the region.
“We’ve worked together with Lions rugby for a long time,” said Matt Vandrau, President, EMEA & APAC, “but as the sort of exclusive commercial agency and events and support agency for the last two tours… we first embarked on a sort of big Lions journey for the South African tour, which sadly was a COVID-affected tour. So everything happened behind closed doors.”
For the 2025 tour, the agreed approach between Rugby Australia and the British & Irish Lions was to unite under a single commercial umbrella. “If you want to maximise your commercial revenues, there’s no point competing with each other… invariably, what happens if you’re competing for the same clients is they play you off against each other. It actually just has a negative effect on commercial revenues.”
Instead, a joint venture was created by the two organisations where “revenues are shared, and everyone is chasing after the partners together,” said Vandrau. “That sort of reshaping of the commercial model has really worked incredibly well.”
The results speak for themselves, with more than 25 brands now part of the Tour’s partner ecosystem. When asked what drove that commercial success, Vandrau pointed to the “top-down” and collaborative strategy.
“We brought Howden, who has never done anything in the sports sponsorship space, into play for the first time ever… That was the biggest front-of-shirt deal that the Lions have ever done.” That deal was followed by major players, including Qatar Airways and DHL, before being rounded out by global suppliers.
When it comes to sponsorship, however, brand expectations are shifting.
“When you leverage a partnership really well… that’s when you really get a good return on investment,” said Peter Jarmain, VP, Australia & APAC. “Simply just investing in the IP rights doesn’t really get you there… You need a full, well-rounded campaign and connection that is multi-layered.”
“It’s how you connect with your target audience and your fans and engage them properly,” Vandrau agreed. “A badging exercise these days doesn’t work… It’s really defining those KPIs you want to try and achieve as a business and then working out how you can leverage the property.”
One standout partner for the duo was ResMed which in May was named the Official Sleep Partner of the Qatar Airways British & Irish Lions Tour to Australia. The brand launched ‘Tackle Your Sleep,’ a digital and content-focused campaign featuring legendary rugby players.
The campaign takes a light-hearted look at serious sleep health issues affecting players and the fans in Australia, the UK, and Ireland, with the rugby legends sharing advice and tools to support better sleep. The campaign aims to raise awareness about the importance of quality sleep for the rugby players and fans, as the third pillar of health, alongside exercise and diet.
“If you get better sleep, you perform better… that campaign mixed some serious messaging with humour incredibly well… The feedback they’ve had from fans around the campaign has been second to none.”
While the Lions campaign has thus far been an unmitigated success, Wasserman’s ambitions go far beyond this one tour.
“We’re really looking at a massive decade of sporting events,” Jarmain said, referencing everything from the Rugby League World Cup to the Brisbane 2032 Olympics. “People are craving that sort of shared experience again. Whether it’s sport, music or culture, that power of being there in the moment with other people really does sort of hit differently.”
“We have that global firepower, but we’ve got a local team here with significant experience to make things land properly for brands,” he continued. “Whether it’s through our live team or brands and properties or The Collective, we really want to focus on creating work that moves people.”
That global-local dynamic is a key part of Wasserman’s strategy. “We work on the Super Bowl, Wimbledon, Champions League… so we’re able to take a lot of those global best practice insights and then provide local clients with some innovation… executed locally through our team here.”
Looking ahead, the agency has its sights set on everything from music to women’s sport. “I’m seeing an increasing number of brands interested in connecting with music culture,” said Jarmain. “And the other area I’m hearing a lot about is how to properly connect with female fans… there’s been a huge investment across rights holders and clubs in female pathways, and a lot of brands are now looking at women’s sport as a vehicle to grow their brand.”
From his global vantage point, Vandrau sees Australia as a key growth market: “Wasserman is three and a half thousand people in 70 offices around the world… our focus for Australia is hiring best-in-class people like Peter to help us grow organically, but we will grow by acquisition as well.”
