The CIM research paper Ambush marketing and the law highlights the changing relationship between public events and their sponsors. There is now an assumption that the sponsor of a public event buys the goodwill in it. While this suits the vested interests in the event, in my view it doesn’t fit with the public “ownership” of events such as the FA Cup, World Cup, and so on.
These events are popular because the public feels some ownership. We need to be cautious that commercialising these events does not destroy them.
The situation is further exacerbated by the sponsors having little association with the event or location, as with Coca‑Cola sponsoring the London 2012 Olympics.
I applaud the Institute in lobbying on these issues, but promoting in-stadium advertising would be a retrograde step if we are trying to retain any semblance of these being non-commercial events. Sponsorship is not ownership; anything else would be unsporting.
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