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When Players Prefer Sponsors’ Competitors.

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An interesting thing happened a couple weeks ago. I was on Twitter, following the GWS Giant’s #AskAGiant hour with Shane Mumford.  If you don’t know about this, it’s a Twitter chat where a player takes over the Giant’s account for an hour (I think?) and answers fan’s questions that are hashtagged “Ask A Giant.”  They do a different player every few weeks.  I, of course, loved the Jeremy Cameron one the best.  The player can pick and choose which ones he answers.  (Sidenote: I think this is a great idea and I think there’s a great amount of involvement. Think of the possibilities!)

One of the questions asked Mummy what he ordered from McDonalds.  He said “Hate McDonalds, I’m a Red Rooster man.” This interested me…

I remember (AGES AGO) Jessica Simpson got in trouble for wearing jeans that weren’t from her own clothing line.  And a few times, I’ve heard of actresses who have caused riffs with sponsors for not mentioning them (and mentioning competitors instead) during magazine interviews. Same goes for sport in the US – I mean, can you imagine if Michael Jordan said he didn’t like Nike? Or if a Celtics player said he got his home loan from Bank of America?  BLASPHEMOUS.

As an American (even one who doesn’t eat at McDonalds – bar the ice cream cones – who doesn’t love a good ice cream cone?) I have feelings about people who hate McDonalds.  But besides that, I thought it was interesting that he chose Red Rooster – a company that has no affiliation with the Giants or the AFL. If he was going to express his distaste for a company, wouldn’t one assume he would do it in order to promote a sponsor?

In this case, GWS has no fast food sponsor and I actually don’t know of an AFL club off the top of my head that does…  But the AFL does have Hungry Jacks.  I don’t know the specifics of this agreement (obviously – but I would LOVE if someone wanted to give me the deets) but I have to wonder what the arrangement says about clubs and player’s promoting competitors.  Maybe there’s nothing in the contract about it.  Maybe the sponsors don’t care.  But I can’t imagine that ground-breaking earth-shaking partnerships are built when players ignore sponsorships in favour of personal preferences.

I’ve never done the math (mainly because I don’t have access to the numbers, but also because I’m certain that someone else has done it before and I’m no copycat) but player endorsements tend to increase sales of a product.  I mean, do you have any idea how many Powerades the boy bought when he heard that an AFL player drank 15 of them before a game? (I should know who it is, and he’ll kill me for forgetting).  He bought HEAPS.  And that’s a gross understatement.

I’m not saying that players should lie in order to promote sponsors or their products – that would defeat the whole purpose of things like #AskAGiant – but there should be some middle ground, no? I mean, the Sydney Swans all drive Volkswagens – surely AFL players can say they like Hungry Jacks onion rings.



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