Preemptive Corporate Sponsorship
By Nate • Sep 21st, 2008 • Category: Sports
Nike has apparently obtained a new form of technology that allows them to sponsor athletes that existed in the bygone days before the footwear mega-giant came into being. It’s a growth industry. Think about it, there were thousands of athletes in the modern era that never had the luxury of having their own designer shoe. Now, they can.
And what better place to start than with a athlete who has a movie coming out about his life and times? The media attention will be tenfold. Brilliant. Enter Ernie Davis, or at least his statue, since Davis has sadly been dead since 1963. See, Davis was an All-American running back from Syracuse in the early 60’s and was the first black man ever to win a Heisman trophy. He was the first pick in the 1961 draft, but never played a down in the NFL. He contracted leukemia and died only two years later.
And now, he’s a Nike athlete. Seriously.
Syracuse University unveiled a new statue of Davis on campus this past week. It is meant to celebrate the life of one of their most celebrated student-athletes and it does that readily, poised outside of the Carrier Dome, home of the Syracuse Orangemen. It also shows off not one, not two, but three Nike Swooshes on Davis’ apparel. One on the side of the shoe, one on the heel and one on his jersey.
The sculptor says that he was working off a picture of Davis from 1963, which is weird, because Nike didn’t have it’s ubiquitous Swoosh until 1971. In fact, Nike was originally just the name of one shoe in their catalog. The company, founded in 1962, after Davis’ playing days were over, was originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports.
This presents the start of a unique opportunity for companies across the spectrum. The re-branding of historical figures. Abraham Lincoln for Stu’s Big & Tall, Albert Einstein for Aquanet, Franklin Roosevelt for Hoverround. It’s a boom industry, and with the news last week, we could certainly use one of those.
So, somehow, Nike has managed to sew a swoosh, either intentionally or unintentionally, onto a player long dead before they made their first football cleat. If it were me, I’d look into the sculptor’s bank records, because there just might be a sizable check deposited from one Nike Inc. in there.
The again, the guy could have just been stupid enough to think that, not only would Davis be wearing Nike apparel, but that he’d also be wearing modern-day helmet and pads to go with his shiny Nike cleats. Oh, who am I kidding, no one is that stupid. Right? Right?!
Crap…
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Nate is pretty sure Mark Twain said it best, "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place."
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Anachronism FTL eh? Most anachronisms are usually minor or unnoticeable, but that one stuck out the instant I saw the picture.
Either that, or H. G. Wells works for Nike, maybe that’s why they’re so rich, they use time travel to get profits from the past. Maybe that’s how those feral children ran so fast, they wore Nikes.
You can’t really blame them with all these drug enhanced sportsmen of today! haha! How much sponsorship money are they paying these dead guys? So I guess famous people’s kids can still live off their parent’s even when they’re dead!
Well, leave it to a corporate giant like Nike to figure out a way to promote its wares through dead athletes. I just hope the families of these athletes were involved in the process and are reaping something from this form of advertising. Seems kind of weird to me, but hey, this is America where you can make a buck doing just about anything.
I am sure that the families of dead would now reap the fruits of success. They could be out of despair atleast for some chances. I thought that the american market is alone a free market and yet again the firms have made it true this time. Money is always worth and sure that the companies would not lose them by this way.
All of you should let companies know your opinion of this type of behavior. Personally I tell every company I get the chance to that their advertising means nothing to me, because I don’t watch it. When I make my purchases I make them with logical decisions. The questions I ask myself are these. How much does it cost? How quickly can I get it? And do I really need it?
I’ve never been one to hang on the latest fad and fashion that was designed to get your previous paycheck out of your hands and into the hands of the promoters, nor to I believe that possessions indicate status or personality. These concepts were developed by psychologists for marketing companies to give them an edge when pushing their products. Once you sit down and learn these concepts the thing that all advertisers fear happens; Advertising quite working on you and becomes a waste of money.
Quite frankly I wish these companies would just establish an easy to find internet presence through search engines and let it be at that! Because all these attention getters they use just gets on my nerves and makes me thing bad of the company. No one likes a pushy corporation.
That is by far the most ridiculous and yet profitable business idea I have ever heard of. The re-branding of historical figures is plain nuts. And I am pretty sure the bank records of the legal heirs and the family members have been dealt with heavily. “Crap” indeed.