London – September 30, 2005:  Specialised digital sports agency, Aura Sports, today announced that they had reached agreement with digital games company Advergamer, to become exclusive third party sales and sponsorship agents for on-line cricket game http://www.stickcricket.com/. Stick Cricket was the official game for the npower Ashes test series between England and Australia.

During the Ashes series, Stick Cricket received over 5m visitors, and over 7m Ashes Games of Stick Cricket were played. The site generated over 140,000 opt in email addresses purely on the Ashes game after its launch on July 21 this year. The busiest day of the summer saw over 100,000 people playing on the same day. Stickcricket now has over 500,000 registered users although players do not need to register in order to play the game.

Paul Wright, Managing Director of Aura Sports says;
“England’s stunning Ashes victory has made cricket the undoubted hit of the summer, and that has impacted very strongly on all things cricket related. Stick Cricket has been at the forefront of online cricket games and with its fantastic playability and characterisation; it has proved hugely successful with both long-term and new fans of the game. At Aura Sports we believe that we are going to see steady growth in online cricket properties and in Stick Cricket we are confident that we will see audiences grow strongly.”

Chris Berry Managing Director of Advergamer adds:
“We are delighted with the success so far of Stick Cricket, and we are very confident that this relationship with Aura Sports will help us to see Stick Cricket remain the number one online cricket game.” 

For more information on Aura Sports visit http://www.aurasports.com/

For more information please contact Mark Thursfield at MTA Media
Tel: 07780 991975 or via email: mark.thursfield@mtamedia.co.uk

NOTES:

Aura Sports:

-Aura Sports represents 88 of the UK’s top Football Clubs

-Aura Sports represents the websites of the ECB and the PCA

-The Aura Sports UK network now has over 11 million unique users

-In 2004 BSkyB acquired a minority share in Aura Sports

-Aura Sports is a privately funded company based in Holland Park, London and Liverpool

-Aura Sports was recently ranked 4th in the Media Momentum Awards – Celebrating the top 50 fastest growing media companies in the country

-Aura Sports now reaches 20.5% of UK internet users (Comscore, June 2005)