Sponsors on the front of football kits play a huge role in the sport, with companies offering an average amount of £60 million per year to the top clubs in Europe.
Elite clubs like Barcelona (Spotify), Real Madrid (Fly Emirates), and Bayern (T Mobile) all net upwards of £70 million annually through their respective FOS sponsors.
Bayern Munich’s sponsor, ‘T-Mobile’, an American telecom company owned by German telecommunication giants, Deutsche Telekom AG, have been associated with the Bavarians for as long as 23 years since the 2002-03 season, having already committed to extending their partnership until 2032, it will mark a whopping milestone of 30 years. This relationship as of now stands as the longest-running active sponsorship partnership in football.
Over the weekend, the defending Bundesliga champions hosted SC Freiburg in Munich, where the hosts lit up the Allianz Arena after coming back from a deficit of 2 goals to win the match 6-2, sending them 6 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga table.
However, it wasn’t the Bavarians’ comeback that caught the eye of fans online, instead it was their specially-themed modification to their pre-match kits ahead of their league fixture.
The ‘T-Mobile’ logos’ ‘T’ in the pre-match kits and advertising boards was visibly seen upside down during the fixture against Freiburg on Saturday, as part of Deutsche Telekom’s campaign to promote the upcoming fifth and final season of one of Netflix’s most loved and watched shows, Stranger Things.
The upside down ‘T’ of the ‘T-Mobile’ logo signifies the ‘upside-down’, a dark parallel universe co-existing in the same physical space along with the real world. The periodic show is set in Hawkins, USA in between the 1960s and the 1980s.
Cool crossover icl
In reality, what has been termed as a “cool crossover”, is just a marketing campaign to draw attention among Bayern and Bundesliga fans to the upcoming final season of the show.
We are no strangers to pop culture tie-ins with football clubs. The first name that comes to mind is FC Barcelona collaborating with their front-of-shirt sponsor, Spotify, to promote various artists’ new releases and concerts.
The reigning La Liga champions have collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music industry like Drake, Coldplay, Travis Scott and quite recently, Ed Sheeran. Collaborations like these drive up huge attention from the fans from both worlds, benefitting both parties involved.
The featured entity gains huge attention from the footballing world, with the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich being two of the biggest names in world football. Similarly, the football clubs also hugely benefit from these collaborations after releasing limited edition clothing wear, which racks up huge demand among their fans.
What do you think about these collaborations? Let us know in the comments down below.
