Sport and advertising: a story of passion and love

Whether it concerns airlines from Asia, Chinese financial products, online mail-order companies or sticky soft drinks: sport has become an indispensable part of advertising these days. Sports photos, TV recordings and sportswear carry millions of sponsorship names. Of Instagram And tiktok the advertising flow has increased enormously again. The revenue generated by advertising is huge and has been for years.

When you look at a photo from top sports these days, you can hardly avoid noticing the jersey prints, the outline advertising, the helmet or trouser sponsors or the goal banner. Yes, the eye has become accustomed to this constant visual stream. To some extent, we are trained to subconsciously hide the ads. In addition, our eyes now quickly recognize whether these are photos of amateur sports or older shots. There are not only well-trained authorities missing, but often also large sponsorship walls, shirt sponsors and imprints. Older photos often refer to long-faded brand names.

Advertising and sports have a long history of relationship. But it was not love at first sight, but a hesitant approach with a lot of turbulence. The connection goes back to the 19th century: the American company already supported the first modern Olympic Games kodak the summer games in Athens in 1896. A successful move, because the symbiosis of photography and sport was just emerging. Four years later, several million advertising contracts have already been signed in Stockholm.

However, there was no large-scale advertising at sports competitions for a long time. But with kodak began product advertising’s close connection to the world of sports. If ovaltine in skiing or cycling as a performance-enhancing drink, watching cameras or advertising based on time measurement: the products always had at least an indirect link with the sport practiced.

Also in the print media, especially in the newly founded sports newspapers, sports-related advertising for bicycles, footballs, tennis rackets or sports-specific clothing can be found early on.

With the breakthrough of sports broadcasting in the TV era and the granting of broadcasting rights from 1960 onwards, there was a real advertising and media boom that could hardly be stopped. What initially led to a relationship chaos between sports and advertising later became a close symbiotic marriage of convenience. The moving images uncontrollably brought more company names and sponsors into the living room to an extent that was never possible before.

But the public TV channels did not like this new stream of images. In this way, indirect advertising could be made on television, which was still largely ad-free at the time. In Switzerland, as in many other European countries, there was still a strict ban on advertising during sports broadcasts on television.

1976 was the year of the great dispute over advertising in Swiss football. Agfaprobably coincidentally another film and camera manufacturer, acts as the first shirt sponsor of the FC Zurich. Edi Naegeli, tobacco merchant, industrious businessman and president of the association, signed a first advertising contract after 1945 with the controversial IG colors cut German-Belgian company. The blue, sometimes red diamond with unmistakable letters adorned the white jerseys of the city club.

For the SRG However, passing on (surreptitious) advertising was undesirable. Therefore, competitions or summaries of the then reigning Swiss champions FC Zurich no longer shown. A hard battle seemed to have begun. However, the monetary temptations weighed more heavily FCZ didn’t remove the ads, other clubs like that FC Basel, YB And Lausanne followed in the same season. And soon Swiss television gave up. Almost all Swiss football clubs now have advertising on their chests. only the Grasshoppers stood firm for a long time. The posh club simply didn’t need it.

Jersey advertising, sponsorship, perimeter advertising thus found their breakthrough thanks to or thanks to television broadcasts. While it used to be common to advertise cigarettes and alcohol and there was a kind of uncontrolled growth, this market has become increasingly regulated for health policy reasons and to protect minors. Yet in a stadium you constantly see advertising for beer, albeit somewhere very small “non alcoholic” stands.

Advertising, whether on jerseys or banners, has yet to be approved by the associations. If this does not happen, it is sometimes expensive, for example if the UEFA thinks the advertising pressure at European club competitions is too great. Or if there is simply no approval: if the FCZ Voting campaign for the still open new stadium and the players with print «YES to the stadium» accumulated, the Disciplinary Commission imposed a fine Swiss football league the FC Zurich then with 20,000 francs. The club had not approved the advertising on the player’s kit in time.

Advertising in sports is essential for clubs, for individual athletes and now also for associations. Not only the iconic cheese jerseys of the Swiss ski team or the SKA– Caps are remembered. Individuals are increasingly becoming marketable billboards and icons. What was already ahead with Bernhard Russi, later Cristiano Ronaldo and, until recently, with Roger Federer in the TV era was reinforced by the social media channels.

But there is also a gender gap in the world of sports advertising. When Swiss footballer Alisha Lehmann advertises products, more than 13 million followers see it. That’s more than Federer or Shaqiri combined; yet she receives less from the association than her male colleagues when the national team plays. Historically, however, these and other oblique positions and dependencies have not been thoroughly explored.

Shirt prints and outline advertising are always signs of the times, symbolic of the interaction between two partners. They are also often unwanted tools for those interested in sports history and research to date and contextualize collectibles or photographs. Or who knows when FC St Gallen advertised for dog food or the FC Lucerne of «See LNN» beat on the chest?