Departing New Zealand Cricket chief executive Christopher Doig is moving into an organisation already moving and shaking the sports management arena in the Southern Hemisphere.

Christopher Doig at media conference to announce resignation effective from March

Doig announced today that at the end of March he will be leaving NZC to join Sporting Frontiers, an international business aimed at sports sponsorship and media rights and securing commercial sponsorships for sporting organisations.

Among some of its leading players in Australia are former NZC marketing manager Neil Maxwell, who also played cricket for Australia A, New South Wales and, most recently, Fiji.

But other big names in the organisation are Australian captain Steve Waugh and his team-mate Shane Lee.

They have an off-shoot of the company called Sporting Frontiers Cricket.

Already, Sporting Frontiers Cricket has secured the ground signage rights for 14 of India's 20 international cricket grounds.

The company is the marketing arm of the Australian Cricketers' Association.

Among leading stakeholders in the Sporting Frontiers company in Australia are the former International Management Group general manager Michael Porra and the man who headed Sydney's successful bid to stage the Olympic Games last year, Rod McGeoch.

Another principal is Kris Donaldson, who was the general manager, sponsorship/marketing, of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.

They have teamed with a holding company for advertising agency George Patterson Bates known as The Communications Group, and the 50% shareholder British millionaire John Beckwith, with his company Pacific Investments.

The company aims to secure major sponsorship and licensing deals.

Increasingly sophisticated sporting bodies, handling large amounts of money often due to the sale of lucrative television rights, are requiring guarantees from companies like Sporting Frontiers before big contracts are awarded.

The companies are then liable if the contracts fall short of the guarantees.

The Sporting Frontiers company is expected to set up offices world-wide. At the moment it has offices in Melbourne and Sydney and Britain, South Africa, India, Thailand, China and Hong Kong.

It is expected the company will have 30 offices around the world within two years.

Sporting Frontiers already has agreements to represent Basketball Australia, Rally Australia and the Australian Cricketers' Association. It is in discussion with several other big sporting and commercial players in Australia.

Despite claims that there would be a large fall-off in sports marketing and sponsorship areas in Australia after the completion of the Olympic Games, the reverse is happening.

The sport marketing growth has been at five times the rate of advertising according to some reports.

Companies who were involved as Olympic sponsors have found the advantages to be had from marketing sport. Some companies are reported to have had a five-time return on their Olympic Games investment and are looking to develop their relationship with sports even further.

That is not forgetting the companies who were not part of the Olympic sponsorships who now see the benefits and want to get involved in the sports marketing concepts.

© CricInfo