In N.Y., Rob Hughes writes under the header “Barcelona Changes Jerseys And Its Values.” The Spanish soccer team has put the Qatar Foundation logo on the front of its jerseys, while UNICEF has been “relegated to the back.” Barcelona will “reap $232 million over five years to carry the Qatar Foundation name on its shirt front and in its stadium.” But the Qatar deal has “caused division and acrimony in the club.” Former FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta, who initiated the UNICEF deal, said, “Our team looks like the Qatar national team now. They’ve sold the shirt for four cents.” Current club President Sandro Rosell “blames Laporta for debts that, he said, threatened the team as he took over.” Hughes notes Rosell’s links to Qatar “go back years, to his work helping to establish a soccer academy in Doha for promising players from around the world.” Rosell last week said, “It’s a country that has asked us to give them a helping hand to open themselves to the world in return for money” (N.Y. TIMES, 9/28).
HOWDY, PARTNER: JTG Daugherty Racing co-owner Brad Daugherty yesterday said that the company is “looking at potential alliances with Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing for the 2012 Sprint Cup season.” Daugherty said that the “goal for the operation is to run the team from its own shop in Harrisburg, N.C.” For the past three seasons, the team “has been working from MWR's shop in Cornelius, N.C.” (ESPN.com, 9/27).
PON DE REPLAY: MARKETING magazine’s Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith reported Gatorade is planning to bring its “Replay” campaign to the U.K. “in an attempt to increase its 2% market share.” The campaign in the U.S. “gives consumers the chance to replay a sports match from their youth that was left without a clear winner.” Gatorade Senior Dir of Consumer Engagement Morgan Flatley said that a “new range of Gatorade products will launch in the UK in the next six months, with a campaign planned for after the London 2012 Olympics” (MARKETINGMAGAZINE.co.uk, 9/27).
