What of Vodafone?
Published
By Mr. C.
The one thing that's not been mentioned during the McLaren vs. Ferrari controversy, is how this affair might affect the relationship between the team from Woking and their number one sponsor.
What of it, you may ask? Well, back in 2005, just before Vodafone decided to switch sponsorship partners from the Scuderia Ferrari Marlborough team to the then West McLaren Mercedes team, there was a lot of talk that the telecommunications company could instead choose to sponsor the FIA Formula One Word Championship.
Thus far, there has never been a title sponsor of the Formula One series, but it's not unusual to find something similar in the United States, for example the NASCAR series is sponsored by Nextel and the championship is known as the NASCAR Nextel Cup. It was also back in 2005 that Vodafone decided to split as sponsor of the football team Manchester United and instead take title honours in the UEFA Champions League.
It's therefore very possible that such a move was given heavy consideration, but ultimately the decision was taken to go with McLaren Mercedes.
As it happens, the arrival of Vodafone co-incided rather nicely with the arrival of a certain Lewis Hamilton and a timely resurgence in form for the Woking team. With hindsight then, the move seems to have been the right one.
Of course, that was until 7 days ago.
During the past week almost every single story relating to F1 has some mention of the phrases 'espionage' and 'Vodafone-McLaren-Mercedes'. No matter the reason for the current situation, no matter the cause or indeed the final outcome, you have to agree that right now, somewhere behind a tinted glass façade, the machinations that will one day see a telecommunications company sponsoring the FIA Formula One World Championship are already in motion.
Because in the end, whatever crisis rocks the world of Formula 1, the FIA always come out of it whiter than white. And that has to be a factor when you're a multinational company such as Vodafone.
6 Responses
You what??! Visit any F1 internet forum and you will see queues of people lining up to say that Max Mosley is a madman who cannot get anything right and that FIArrari are biased.
ahhh, but do you think vodafone care about forums?
bbc, reuters, share-holder meetings etc. places that matter to vodafone. the fia never lose in the 'important' places.
right now the red and white telco is looking bad in all of the above situations, and that is not good for them.
I still have my doubts about the convenience of a title sponsor , specially in a sport that needs a big amount of money from sponsors, Sponsors make F1's wheels go 'round; and signing a company as a title sponsor means there would be other companies that would really think at least twice to spend money sponsoring a team to compete on a championship sponsored by a competitor, or that would simply not been allowed to do it. I don´t know if vodafone would like a Movistar sponsored car winning races
Nascar for example before being the nextel cup was known during 33 years as Winston Cup; during that period you never saw another tobacco company in the sport [other than smokeless tobacco]. The reach and scope of their exclusivity was all throughout NASCAR including trucks and bush series, If Formula 1 goes the same way, that could affect all the suporting series too.
good point hugo. in fact NASCAR currently has an issue whereby title sponsor Nextel is trying to ban all rival telco branding on cars from next year.
however, now that bernie has sold the rights of the sport to CVC, they have a responsibility to shareholders and partners to maximise income / profits.
i doubt if the impact a title sponsorship would have on a specific team's income has been given any consideration?
NASCAR may have problems with the title sponsor wishing to control team sponsorship. But the Champions League don't have the same problem. Look at all the Telecoms related sponsorhips in top flight European football.
Lofty_p, that is a fine point. something that requires a bit more investigation methinks.
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