New Zealand rugby team to use bus as locker room for sponsorship reasons

New Zealand rugby players are going to change their clothes on the bus in order to maximize sponsorship money.

The fact that New Zealand is favored to win this month’s Rugby World Cup is great news for the team’s sponsors. The fact that teams can’t wear jerseys with sponsored logos anywhere but the practice field is bad news. 

Players can’t wear sponsored gear anywhere associated with the tournament. That includes matches, but also hotels. That’s a tough break for All Blacks sponsor AIG, which plants its logo right on the Kiwis chests. 

The All Blacks have found a solution, though, and it involves very smelly travel conditions. 

“The moment we leave our training venue, we go back into the Rugby World Cup bubble,” New Zealand Rugby CEO Steve Tew told Bloomberg. “So the boys will be getting changed on the bus, literally.”

This way the players will be wearing the AIG logo when they get filmed by TV crews getting off the bus for practice and boarding to go back to the hotel after. Just be careful you’re not taking off your shorts when the bus goes over a pothole. 

• Two French rugby teams played in the dark because the lights were out

- Dan Gartland