Sports Sponsorships Can Be Something More Sinister

Hey Jessports fans

My job as a marketer is to sling a whole lot of bullshit at people on behalf of companies to get them to agree to a certain narrative or to part with their hard-earned money. It's a viable job but it is by no means always an ethical one, in marketing with enough money you can blur the lines and I am of the belief that we're all at fault for pushing these boundaries at times to suit our end goals.

From Apple computers to the small mom and pop shop down the street, we all need to sling a little bullshit to make you pull out your wallet, customers want to be romanced, they expect to be, like a man professing his undying love so she'll love him in return, we do the same so you'll open up your wallets.

So now that you know marketing is built on a ground littered with BS here and there I have to say theirs been one type of marketing that has been used for some pretty sinister means and those are football jersey sponsorships. I love football as much as the next football fan but I have to call out things when I see it.

We've seen examples of silly cases of fraud with Arsenal and BYD or ESPN and Dreamhouse Productions and while these may be scams I'm talking about something that's permitted but leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you read about it. Yes, this rabbit hole goes deep and it's all tied to the energy sector.

Sponsorships are usually consumer based

When a brand decides they're going to sponsor a club they're hoping to tap into that fanatical sports clubs fan base and get them to promote their brand name by wearing it on merchandise. As your brand remains top of mind you continue to win over customers and so the theory behind it goes. This is true for example in the case of someone like say a Manchester United and Cheveloret, the advertising potential is endless for one brand deal and companies feel they could get their money worth when compared to other advertising channels.

As the search for bigger sponsorships continued football clubs started to move into other avenues such as B2B companies such as AIG with Man United, for example, a large insurance company and many have also signed deals with betting companies. Which I have a separate issue with, I don't see why a sport basically targetting kids should have betting messaging forced down their thoughts at an impressionable age but that's a story for another day.

Remain competitive

As sponsorships became a more competitive field and securing better sponsorships can help your team become more competitive, buy better players and pay higher wages to keep the best players with the hope of winning silverware football teams have started to make deals with anyone who would give them the desired cash injection.

As the money flowed in you saw players getting bigger contracts, clubs paying higher transfer fees and the teams increasing their fan bases which intern makes them more money. It's like a kickstart to success and clubs in football are always looking for instant results as the fans demand.

Energy sector meets entertainment

What really peaked my attention was the influx of non-consumer based businesses wanting to advertise on sports teams shirts, it didn't make sense to me, were their marketing teams just looking for a way to dump cash somewhere for the sake of taxes? Then I began to look into it and it was far more strategic than I thought, as the example of Gazprom in Russia.

Image source - futbolgrad.com

Russia is one of the largest producers of natural gas in Europe and Gazprom basically has the monopoly over it by sharing their stake with the Russian government, so basically the Russian government disguised as a company. Gazprom pump natural gas all over Europe but their pipelines went through former forced to be my buddy state Ukraine, who eventually now with independence gave them the finger and taxed them in their transport of gas across Ukraine.

So what did the Russians do? Well build a new pipeline of course, but building a new pipeline has serious economic, environmental and political backlash, one that no single company could take so how did they get around it?

Well, the Germans one of Europes largest economies were looking to reduce Nuclear and Fossil energy and needed some extra natural gas and was open to Russia being the provider but with Ukraine in the way of all that extra income into Russia, Gazprom decided to build a new pipeline. The deal obviously wasn't going to be met well with the public so let's do some major PR.

Gazprom decides to sponsor teams in Germany with Shalke, Zenit in Russia and Red Star In Serbia as well as being the Champions League Sponsor. Pumping millions into these clubs who started to, well improve their standards, compete for trophies and improve relations with the public who are a fickle bunch. Football is a very talked-about sport online so these sponsorships also act as a smokescreen as finding data about the deals is harder with all the Gazprom mentions across the internet burying any real articles in a sea of sports content.

So what happened? The pipeline went ahead without a glitch, so much so that they're building a second one. I think a few football sponsorships is a small price to pay for securing a billion euro deal over the foreseeable future, don't you?

I think it goes to show the power of tapping into these sports teams and I don't think they will be the last company to use them as PR spinner.

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If you don't want to read about the story or would prefer a video break down you can find one here. I'm by no means a fan of the left-leaning Vox so take what they say with a grain of salt in certain instances but pay close attention to the marketing machine being created by sponsored deals.

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