You didn’t read about the Adelaide Crows’ newest key sponsor in The Advertiser this morning – which isn’t surprising considering it’s a key media rival to the newspaper’s owner News Corp.

The Crows announced late yesterday that The Domain Croup had signed on as a “platinum partner” in a four-year, multi-million-dollar deal that will see the real estate group’s logo appear on the club’s match-day shorts and media backdrop.

The Domain Group is a division of Fairfax Ltd and competes fiercely with the News Corp majority-owned Real Estate Australia Group (REA) for the real estate industry’s advertising dollars.

As reported by InDaily  late last year, Domain is making an aggressive push into the Adelaide market, taking advantage of widespread discontent among SA real estate agents about REA’s recent increases in its advertising rates.

Domain runs a range of real estate marketing websites including domain.com.au, allhomes.com.au and reviewproperty.com.au as well as a print property guide which is delivered to 75,000 Adelaide addresses.

REA runs realestate.com.au and is majority owned by News Corp, the publisher of The Advertiser, Sunday Mail and Messenger newspapers.

Given the massive coverage given to the Crows by these publications, the sponsorship will be a challenge for News Corp which has a general policy of ignoring its competitors in the pages of its newspapers.

It might be tempted to crop or Photoshop images of Crows players, but that would put it on a head-on collision course with the AFL, which fiercely protects official sponsors.

Domain will be second only to long-term major sponsor Toyota in the hierarchy of Crows’ corporate supporters.

Announcing the deal, Domain Group CEO Antony Catalano said the sponsorship was part of the company’s “aggressive” push into South Australia.

“South Australia is a market that has not been particularly well served by other media businesses,” he said.

“We are confident we can bring better products and better value to the South Australian real estate industry, providing better outcomes for vendors, buyers and agents.

“The partnership with the Crows provides a unique opportunity to build the Domain brand and is a very strong statement that we are serious about South Australia and that we are here for the long term as we continue our aggressive national expansion.”

Crows CEO Andrew Fagan said the club was proud to join forces with a strong national brand.

“The club is embarking upon an exciting new era and we are thrilled Domain are joining us on our journey,” Fagan said.

“Domain has long had a presence in South Australia and will be a prominent partner with high visibility across our growing media platform.”

With traditional newspapers fighting for survival, the battle for real estate advertising is becoming increasingly fierce.

Last year Domain Group pitched to local real estate agents to buy into a digital advertising business that would be 50 per cent owned by SA real estate agencies and 50 per cent owned by Fairfax.

Catalano wrote to agents to pitch the deal, saying “this is the industry’s chance to create a genuine alternative and put a stop to the widespread concerns over the behaviour of other media companies”.

InDaily understands that some of Adelaide’s most influential real estate agencies were persuaded by the deal.