The IC3 Blue Train - A little journal about design, marketing, sales and other matters

About the branding of sports events: how much is too much?

Last Saturday, I became a camel. And the straw that broke my back was the fact that The Derby is now called … The Vodafone Derby. Imagine: you’re watching the BBC coverage of the Epsom Derby, one of the most prestigious flat thoroughbred horse races in the world that first took place in 1779 ( the year the Iron Bridge was completed – a British icon of the Industrial Revolution and the first all cast-iron bridge ever constructed). The very properly dressed BBC commentators can’t call it anymore “The Derby” like in the past 227 years. They have to say “The Vodafone Derby” (and they are not allowed to raise their eyebrows;-).

How could such a venerable event in the British life sell its soul to wireless communications merchants? Will the Championships, Wimbledon -commonly referred to as "Wimbledon", the oldest and arguably most prestigious event in the sport of tennis – become the IBM Championships (IBM, as Official Internet Technology Sponsor of the Championships, provides the equipment and services to build and host the Wimbledon Online Shop)? Quite possibly, I’d say. There are plenty of other examples.

In UK football, the 1^st division is called the Barclays Premiership and the 2^nd division has become the Coca-Cola Football League Championship. Confusing? The League Cup has been renamed the Carling Cup. But the FA Cup is still called the FA Cup; the cost of the trick was probably set too high.

International rugby has caught the bug as well. The Six Nations Championship, an annual international rugby union competition held between England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales has become the RBS 6 Nations. At each game, the grass at the centre of the field is ‘painted’ with a giant logo of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

American friends, can you picture a 30-foot Pepsi Cola logo at the center of the pitch for the Super Bowl? Can you imagine the Stanley Cup being called the Budweiser Cup? Probably not, because institutions like the NFL and the NHL have long understood that their brand should not be compromised or ‘polluted’, not to say prostituted. These brands stand proudly by themselves and their sponsors are happy just to take a supporting role, not centre stage.

Maybe it’s time to send the greedy managers and bureaucrats of some sports federations, associations and other respectable institutions to some basic marketing courses before the whole shebang lapses into the ridiculous. What do you think?