Beer Sponsorship of World Cup Leaves Dutch Fans in Their Underwear

The World Cup is more than just a soccer tournament; it is a marketing dream for many companies. Being an official sponsor means the company’s brand will be seen globally for a month, often in markets where consumers are otherwise unreachable. However, the sponsorship rules also result in a few insane situations. For example, as a result of an “ambush” marketing plan, several hundred Dutch fans watched their team beat Ivory Coast 2-1 wearing only their underwear.

Anheuser-Busch, brewers of Budweiser and other thinly flavored beer, bought the brewer sponsorship. This means that in Germany, land of the stein and the bierkeller, the only beer available at the match sites is this American stuff, which would never pass the now-repealed Reinheitsgebot, or German beer purity law (wheat beer didn't either, but that's another story). Moreover, no other beer can have its signs or logos anywhere at the match sites. Enter Dutch brewery Bavaria and its ambush marketing plan.

Bavaria handed out orange lederhosen with its name and logo on them to the Dutch fans. Stewards at the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion wouldn’t let the Dutch fans in wearing the lederhosen with the offending name. Now, the Dutch are soccer fanatics, and people who have paid to see a World Cup match aren’t about to be turned around by a rent-a-cop attached to the fashion police. One after another, they threw away the orange trousers and proudly marched into the stadium in their boxers or briefs. “Hoep Holland!”

The sight of so many people watching a soccer game in their underwear raises the question of just how far should sporting events be allowed to sell themselves to Budweiser, Nike, and the rest. Or indeed, how far the sales of sponsorship can go in making the fans fall in line with the corporate demands. After all, the fans didn’t get any money from Anheuser-Busch, so why must they obey the diktat about Bud logos?

Free speech, especially for a World Cup played in Germany with some matches in Adolf Hitler’s Olympic stadium, matters – even if all one wants to say is “Bud sucks!” What if a political organization handed out flyers in front of the stadium protesting some grievance, from whaling to nuclear energy to Haditha? Would the stewards be entitled to stop them? The German government couldn’t prevent the Dutch fans from wearing the trousers of their choice, so why should FIFA and an American company be able to do so? “Because they paid for it” is a pretty lame reason.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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