Major sports in Australia are facing the possibility of multi-million dollar revenue hits after Virgin Australia entered voluntary administration.
Virgin holds lucrative major sponsorship deals with the AFL and Supercars.
The airline is also in partnership with the AFL clubs Carlton, GWS and Gold Coast.
The AFL deal is reportedly worth between $5 million and $10 million per year.
But the sponsorship agreements are now under the microscope with the extent of the financial damage to be determined by administrators and contractual obligations.
“We'll work through every one of those contracts as part of administration,” Virgin CEO Paul Scurrah said on April 21.
“The AFL is a very important partner of ours and it’s important that we have those partners on the other side.
“I know that we have a lot of sponsorships as well in other sports and we'll be looking at all of those as we go forward through the administration.”
Carlton chief executive Cain Liddle pledged his club’s support to Virgin on Tuesday.
“From an economic perspective it would be hard to think of an industry hit harder than the airlines,” Liddle said in a club statement.
“As a club, we will continue to offer our full support to Virgin Australia and their people, who have stood by our side for the past five years and through some very difficult periods for our football club.”
Blues midfielder Sam Walsh said the club was yet to address the major sponsor’s crisis with the playing group.
“We have weekly team meetings and we haven’t had this week’s team meeting that gives us information on all our sponsors and how they’re tracking,” Walsh told reporters on Tuesday morning.
“The only thing we can do is be there to support them because they’ve been great support to us throughout the time that they’ve been part of the club.”
