Last month Triple M united some of the biggest names in world rugby and sold out Ballymore Stadium for the first time in more than 15 years when the station staged its historic Classic Rugby for Christchurch International match to raise funds for earthquake devastated Christchurch. The amount raised was announced yesterday at a lunch function in Brisbane, with the station revealing $589,000 was raised at the big game.
Austereo Brisbane General Manager Richard Barker said the lunch is Triple M’s way of acknowledging and thanking the incredibly supportive family of sponsors who made the event possible.
He presented a cheque to the Red Cross for $541,836; a cheque for $20,000 to Community Rugby in Queensland, and a cheque for $26,000 to Canterbury Community Rugby in NZ.
The lunch event was attended by Austereo CEO Guy Dobson as well as CEO of Southern Cross Media, Rhys Holleran. The Triple M team was also at the announcement, along with the family of sponsors and supporters who made it happen.
“Triple M’s Classic Rugby for Christchurch was put together in just nine days. The Triple M team, inspired by an idea from Marto, pulled together two truly international teams, secured sponsorships, locked down logistics, confirmed game operations, found jerseys and team uniforms and sold out Ballymore,” said Barker. “This is mind-blowing, and Brisbane responded with overwhelming support.”
“When Marto and The Cage came up with this idea, we had to run with it. It proves that even in times of crisis, when Brisbane and Queensland had also survived its fair share of disasters this year, the city still heeds the call and rallies for the cause.”
The event was “truly a multi-platform, multi media event,” according to Barker. “Content was pushed out over The Cage and airwaves of Triple M, through Triple M on line, through social media in Facebook and Twitter and we were also able to drive fully integrated client involvement on the day on the ground, on jersey, on line, on radio, along with strong local, international, TV, press and on line coverage.”
On game day, which was March 10, Triple M had the highest unique browsers in the Australian radio category with 22,737; there were 23,730 live streams of the game and over 277,000 page impressions on game day.
It was a sold out match, with 100 corporate boxes sold; 176 kegs of CUB’s Carlton Mid consumed, 5000 Dominos Pizzas eaten, 3,200 Streets Ice Creams licked and 4,000 bottles of Lipton Ice tea drunk.
At the end of the lunch, in a surprise move, Marto was presented with his jersey from the game, as a thank you for inspiring the event, and to formerly acknowledge his official “rugby retirement.” March 10 was his final game for Australia.