Benny the Bilge Rat is fed up with over-the-top sailing sponsorships
Once upon a time, dear readers, the world’s great sporting events were happy to be known by their names alone. Wimbledon. The Masters. The Olympics.
The Kentucky Derby. Today, most have sold their birthright for a mess of corporate pottage. Even the America’s Cup is now the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup – sponsored by a French company, a nation that has never won the damn thing let alone even been the challenger!
This commercial takeover of sport is, of course, nothing new. But it seems to have become more strident and intrusive of late.
Through a 40-year campaign of naming rights acquisitions, Rolex has made itself the virtual exclusive ‘owner’ of international sailing at the elite level. They command a dominant presence in the sport that aligns, ever so neatly, with their luxury image. It’s clever marketing. The Swiss horologists make clunky $50,000 wrist watches that probably keep time no better than a $50 Swatch from Wal-Mart. But that’s the power of branding.
One level down and things get messier. SailGP sells the naming rights for each round of their travelling circus to a different corporate sucker. Last weekend in Germany it was Rockwool’s turn. Others to take that bait include Mubadala (an Abu Dhabi investment house), and KPMG (the management consultancy that’s currently fighting off ethical issues in Australia).
The SailGP teams each then have individual sponsors, so the commentators and reporters are obliged to regurgitate ugly word salads just to plug (sorry, ‘recognise’) the various partners.
SailGP and the America’s Cup are commercial enterprises who can make their own rules. But the bulk of competitive sailing around the world is still a sporting activity. Once the starting gun fires any corporate involvement is close to meaningless. Yet the most modest little centreboard clubs now feel they’ve missed the boat unless they can secure a sponsor – any sponsor. The local auto-repair shop or hair salon will do.
Meanwhile, I’m amazed that so many yachts in the elite Grand Prix fleets are happy to emblazon their hulls and sails with brand logos and corporate names. It’s understandable when that’s the owner’s own business. The tax deduction benefit for promotional expenditure is obvious. But why spoil your boat’s name and look for the price of a mainsail or spinnaker when the total outlay for buying the yacht, paying for its maintenance, insurance, mooring fees and a professional crew is at least 30 times more?
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ (I hear you say). ‘It’s just free enterprise at work. Everyone benefits’. So it seems, but there’s another factor at play here that can easily become a tail-wagging-the-dog situation. Sponsors want quantifiable outcomes. They demand a measurable bang for their buck they can show to their shareholders. In the contemporary world that means media exposure, TV ratings and internet hits – the holy grail of fan engagement.
But sailing, as we know, doesn’t have quite the audience reach of Sunday Night Football. In their quest for ‘eyeballs’ the response from sponsor-dependent sailing groups has often been to abandon the established principles of our sport and replace them with contrived ‘made-for-TV’ formats. That’s how the America’s Cup races have gone from four hours to 20 minutes. History and tradition? They go in the dumpster.
Yet here’s the mystery: What is it that forces clubs who once were able to operate quite comfortably from their own resources to now go begging for corporate dollars? Has the scale of their events expanded so much? Do the participants expect more? Why has the scramble for increased size and prestige been allowed to escalate? To this old rodent, it all seems pointless, self-defeating – and rather cheap.
Thankfully, there are still clubs that manage to retain their Corinthian ideals and eschew commercial relationships. They continue to run major regattas and offshore events without sponsorship. They do it by simply keeping their ambitions in balance with their budgets. It ain’t that hard.
The Rat
