Media And Sport

various media for exposure through sponsorship, television is the most effective and constitutes a relatively cheap form of advertising. Carlsberg beers, for example, might sponsor Liverpool Football Club to the tune of two million pounds, but, if the team has a successful year, the distinctive Carlsberg logo will be seen on our television screens for the full ninety minutes of a dozen or more league and cup games. Other games will have their highlights shown, plus the best goals will get repeated ad nauseam, so there could well be upwards of thirty hours of television time in which we are constantly reminded that Carslberg beers are the sponsors of Liverpool F.C.

Of course, it is not just through television that this sort of sponsorship pays off. Replica kits have become big business, and although the youngsters [mostly] who buy the shirts might pay more attention to whether or not they have the name ‘McManaman’ or ‘Fowler’ on the back, they will be carrying the Carslberg logo around with them every time they dress in the colours of their heroes.

Despite the undoubted importance of this sort of spin-off advertising, television is where the real impact is made. Television commercials are expensive, and the current limit on advertising on ITV is only six minutes in every hour. With the sponsorship of sports events, company names are on the screen almost constantly for anything from one and a half to eight hours in a day. Sponsors such as Cornhill insurance, who support the test matches [internationals] involving the England cricket team, have almost unlimited advertising at a fraction of the normal cost. They have developed the art of raising public awareness of the company to such a degree that they have even managed to profit from cricket’s traditional enemy, England’s weather. Whenever there are rain interruptions, the umpires may be seen inspecting the pitch under the cover of huge umbrellas, which are emblazoned with the Cornhill Insurance motif and bear the company’s distinctive gold and black colouring.

Public awareness of Cornhill Insurance rose from 2% to around 17% in only four years through their sponsorship of the England cricket team [Lawrence:10]. Their name appears in every conceivable location, most of which appear on the television screens.

Cigarettes and Alcohol

Yet there is no doubt that sponsorship is occasionally used as a flimsy disguise to circumvent the laws of television advertising. Cigarette advertising, for instance, is illegal on television in the UK, but the tobacco companies are not prohibited from sponsoring sporting occasions, and their names and logos are thus splashed across TV screens hour after hour during cricket matches, grands prix, golf tournaments and the like. Alcohol adverts are not banned from television, but are strictly controlled, yet drinks companies are also voracious sponsors, opting for all the aforementioned sports, plus football and rugby. Golf, a particularly telegenic sport, has events sponsored by companies such as Dunhill, Benson & Hedges and Johnnie Walker: Rothmans has become associated with the football yearbook [but does not sponsor televised football]: John Player was once synonymous with cricket, and Benson & Hedges still is: Marlboro sponsors a formula 1 racing team: Stones Brewery sponsors the rugby league championship: Courage Brewery sponsors the rugby union championship: and, last but not least, Silk Cut cigarettes sponsor the Rugby League Challenge Cup. Perhaps it is not surprising that the third biggest sponsorship industry, after tobacco and alcohol, is life insurance.

Football teams are particularly well supported by brewers, more so than in any other country in Europe. It is uncommon, but not unheard of, in Germany, The Czech republic and Belgium for the top teams to be sponsored by brewers: in Spain and Portugal it would be very unusual indeed: and in Italy you could certainly not imagine Heineken or Budweiser printed across the chest of Maldini or Baggio. In England and Scotland, on the other hand, the image of the beer-swilling supporter has still not been eradicated, despite the efforts of some clubs: there is an irony [or hypocrisy] in the fact that many of the clubs who clamour for a family atmosphere not only sell alcohol inside the ground, but wear the names of breweries on their shirts.

Replica Kits

The big sponsorship and advertising boom has been in clothing, partly through the footwear ‘war’ [Adidas, Nike and Reebok in particular] but most noticeably, in the British context, through the replica kit industry This has a multi-million pound turnover, and has brought with it some rather cynical, but effective business practices. A little over a decade ago, teams tended to play in one kit, unless there was a colour clash with the opposition, but even then the replica kit industry was big business: Adidas were turning over a million pounds a year as far back as 1988 from their deal with Manchester United [Mason, 1989:2:166].

By that time, however, Umbro had come up with the idea of persuading [i.e. paying] teams to change the design of their shirts every two years, thereby obliging the fanatical supporter to buy a new shirt at regular intervals. Two years soon became one year, and eventually teams were producing two, or even three kits a season, so that the parents of fashion-conscious young football fans were having to spend over a hundred pounds a year to guarantee the street credibility of their young ones.

Notorious offenders were Manchester United, who not only brought out new home and away kits, but introduced ‘specials’ such as the 1992 Newton Heath centenary kit, a garish Victorian combination of yellow and green which did not improve the average supporter’s finances and did even less for his or her sartorial reputation. Since then, it has become a feature of the game that the Red Devils may play in blue, white, grey, black or even red! They are by no means the only team guilty of this marketing strategy, however, and Newcastle United’s astute financial directors are recouping some of the sixty million pounds they have recently spent [on a side which, so far, has failed to win anything] by producing ever more ‘trendy’ new kits. The industry has become such big business that Manchester United, whose recent phenomenal success and traditional popularity have meant that they are the runaway leaders in replica kit sales, recently signed a six-year shirt sponsorship deal worth, reputedly, sixty million pounds. [The club says this figure is an exaggeration, but has refused to give details