Sun Life Financial has joined the national curling sceneThe 2012 Players' Championship starts tonight in Summerside, Prince Edward Island and the big news of the day, just announced by the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling, is that a new title sponsor has been announced – just in time for the event and the weekend finals on Global Television.
“Sun Life Financial is delighted to announce our relationship with The Players’ Championship of curling,” said Mary De Paoli, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Sun Life Financial.
“The Sun Life Financial Players’ Championship is a natural fit for us as curling is a truly iconic Canadian sport and this event features the best curlers in the world.”
This marks Sun Life Financial’s first foray into big-league curling on a national level. They already sponsor one of the World Curling Tour’s most popular eastern stops – the Sun Life Classic – but the odds are good that this sponsorship comes from the local level (Brantford, Ontario). Ditto for the previous Sun Life Classic, aka the one in Thunder Bay, Ontario that enjoyed its heyday in the 1980s and 90s.
“We’re very pleased to welcome Sun Life Financial as the official title sponsor of The Sun Life Financial Players’ Championship,” said Kevin Albrecht, Chief Executive Officer of the Grand Slam of Curling. “The Sun Life Financial Players’ Championship has an exciting new format this year as for the first time ever, the top right teams on the world rankings will battle it out for the largest prize purse in curling. The combined purse for the men’s and women’s divisions, including the year-end Capital One Cup, will be $370,000.”
As we told you recently, the men’s and women’s finals of The Players’ will be broadcast live April 21-22, beginning at 12:00pm (eastern time) on the Global Television national network.
“The field for The Sun Life Financial Players’ Championship is definitely the toughest we have faced all year.” said Kevin Martin, 2010 Olympic champion and the defending men’s Players’ champion. “It is such a difficult event to win as every game is against a team ranked in the top eight in the world.”