Last night, I watched the final of the Copa Libertadores, and the championship-winning team was Santos of Brazil. They scored three goals, and beat Peñarol 2-1. (They scored the goal against themselves, too, just to be nice to the other team. And for exhibiting good sportsmanship, the other team started a fight with them on the field right after the game as a “thank you”. Oh well, I guess no good deed goes unpunished.) But I was surprised to see that their uniforms were virtually covered in advertising for brand names, with corporate identity logos printed in practically every available space. No, really! They had company logos on the front and back of the jerseys, down both sleeves on the front and the back of the sleeves, and on the shoulders; and then on the shorts, there was advertising printed on both legs, plus one big one printed across the whole butt.* I don’t think it’s even possible for them to have any more advertising on their outfits, unless the logos were all cramped together so that you couldn’t even see them clearly anymore!
Anyway, since they’ve crammed the soccer uniforms with so much advertising already, and everything always has to become more extreme with advertising over time, I think the next logical step to get even more and stronger advertising message value out of soccer uniforms will be this: have all the teams dress up as corporate mascots! So you could have a soccer game where, for example, one team all dress up as Ronald McDonald, with the yellow jumpsuits with Jodhpur legs, the big red afro-wigs, the clown ‘smile’ make-up, and the big silly clown shoes; and the other team all dress up as the Geico gecko in a big plushie suit with the tail flopping all around when they run. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I think so! And I think it’s also the future of sports-team sponsorship! Then no matter how far away the camera is, or how fast the players are running, you couldn’t possibly miss recognizing what the advertising message is! (Plus, it would add an extra dimension of entertainment to the game to see them all trying to play while wearing that stuff!) And after the game, we’d all be brainwashed to go buy whatever products they were advertising with their uniforms!
See? It can’t fail! I hope they start doing it next year!
* (By the way, if you don’t believe me, just type in “Santos 2011 uniform” in Google Images and look at some of those shirts, or just go to the following link {They are the black & white ones}:
But I think there was more stuff on the shorts in the game last night.)
