Sponsorship ruling the game? (Football in General)

Name: CStff

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Product:	Football in General
Date:	04/09/01 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More Money, helps businesses

Disadvantages: Getting out of hand

As every club tries to make as much money as they can, and considering the prospect of the new transfer regulations, it is no suprise that sponsorship deals are big business.

Shirt sponsors are now taken for granted, with almost every club having one (Barcelona do not have shirt sponsors)with the likes of Manchester United wearing Vodafone on their shirts, and both Glasgow rivals (Celtic and Rangers) wearing the logos of NTL. I thought I'd have a look and see just how far sponsorship can go to putting money into the game.

Take for example your average match day, what do we have? The programme, no doubt sponsored by Jakes Scrap Metal Merchants or the local paper shop, on top of that you have the adverts in the programme too. Again this is taken for granted and nobody gives it a second thought. Of course the matchball is sponsored, and each player it now seems can have upto 3 or 4 different sponsors, In return for throwing money at the club they get their name mentioned in the programme. The rest is fairly simple, adverts around the ground everywhere you look, and in most cases the bigger sponsors have their ads facing the way of any potential tv cameras, this no doubt costs a bit more.

The Team, why not change the team name to suit a sponsor, like PSV are something to do with Philips (Philips Sport Vereniging) and they also play at the Philips Stadion.

Stadiums are already becoming sponsored, we have the likes of the Reebok Stadium, The BT Cellnet Riverside Stadium and with news that Leeds are considering changing to the Nike Stadium is time other clubs followed suit?

Can you imagine going to see your local team Hewlett Packard XI playing at Big Mac Meals Stadium?

How else can sponsorship help the game (or ruin it, as some people see it)? In the case of the Football game Fifa 2001 the clock that times your 90 minutes is sponsored, now if you can get away with having the clock sponsored what else can we get a
way with???

Boots - Each players boots could end up looking like a F1 car with badges all over the place, if my memory serves me correctly I am sure that someone has already done this with sponsorship on the sole of their boots - let me know in the forums.

Strips - these are generally sponsored by the kit makers, as are the boots, but why not have ads running around the bottom the shorts or the shirt?? Plenty people interested in that, Imagine having Ann Summers name around David Beckhams groin (yuck!).

The Dugout - why not have that sponsored, and if necessary adapt it to suit the sponsors needs, such as Pepsi or Tango, the dugouts could be redesigned to look like giant cans of juice.

The Leagues are sponsored (Nationwide, Carling etc) why not have particular times in the league sponsored, such as the promotions stages? You can just imagine it...

"..and Birmingham have done it, they have beaten Blackburn into the Persil Automicatic promotion spot....."

And why not??

Lets take explotation, sorry I mean sponsorship, a little further, we could get the commentators involved, companies could offer them a little extra, as well as the club in question to mention there names.....

"......and a lovely finish to that move by Manchester United, a great goal by Dwight Yorke, scored in association with Fujitsu......"

Great idea don't you think?

And of course post match interviews could be inspired listening...

interviewer: "So Gerrard, Liverpool played great you must be proud of the team"

G Houllier: "of course, They wouldn't have been so great had they not drunk Lucozade, and thanks to Skoda we can travel back to Liverpool to celebrate with some Grolsch"

Fascinating ideas don't you think?

If you have any more ideas on how clubs could exploit the sponsorship situation to aid them, or want to tell me I
9;m talking crap do so a www.thefootballforums.org.

Craig

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