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BEYOND THE GAME
-BECKHAM’S TAT’S -BRANDING AND SPORTS SUCCESS -WHAT MAKES A GREAT SPORTS LOGO? -THE BAD AND THE WORST -THE FASTRACK TO LOYALTY
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This is the Overtime magazine, the new way of analyzing sports. We don’t write about the normal hype, instead we see sports through the eyes of design and advertising. Our team is composed by people who love designing, writing and sports, and this combo is what makes what we do sort of unique. We sincerely hope you enjoy our first try at this and that you refer it. If you like it let us know, same if you do. Welcome to this first edition.
Editor in Chief Julio José Sánchez Creative Directors Unnati Marda Julio Sanchez Morgan McMurtry Graphic Design Julio José Sánchez Unnati Marda Layout Julio Sanchez Copy Editor Unnati Marda Writters Unnati Marda Julio Sanchez Morgan McMurtry
Julio José Sánchez Editor in Chief
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL 2 BECKHAM’S TATS
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BRANDING AND SPORTS SUCCESS: Turning winning into a brand promise
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WHAT MAKES A GREAT SPORTS LOGO? 10 THE BAD AND THE WORST
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THE FASTRACK TO LOYALTY
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NUMBER.1
BECKHAM’S
TAT S “They’re about the important people in my life.”
He just got the number ‘99’ added to his extensive tattoo collection to mark one of the happiest years of his life. And it is safe to say that David Beckham’s love of body art will see him squeeze many more inkings into his already intricately decorated physique. Now as the 40-year-old sporting superstar has as many designs as years on the clock. Weeks before that, he had the words Pretty Lady inked above his daughter’s name Harper on his neck, in honour of his Harper’s fourth birthday. David first went under the needle in 1999 after the birth of his oldest son, Brooklyn. He is thought to have caught the bug from Spice Girl Mel B’s then husband, Jimmy Gulzar,
and ended up getting his son’s name in a classic Gothic script to commemorate Brooklyn’s arrival into the world. In 2000, he was back at the tattoo studio and emerged with a large guardian angel in the middle of his upper back. The sweet idea behind the design is that the angel is watching over Brooklyn’s name below. In the same year, David pledged his devotion to wife Victoria with a tattoo of her name in Hindi script. Experts later pointed out the tribute, unfortunately, actually said ‘Vihctoria’. After the birth of their second son Romeo in 2002, David added his name above the guardian angel which had been tweaked and given impressive wings.
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“Vihctoria” Shortly after his Romeo addition, David chose to get the number 7 tattooed on to his inner arm in Roman numerals. As football fans will know, the number is special to the former midfielder as it’s the number on his shirt for Manchester United and England. In 2003, he got a Latin inking on left inner arm reading ‘So that I love and cherish’ and ‘Sipritual perfection’ onto his right. Later in that year, he celebrated his move to Real Madrid by flying over his tattooist Louis Malloy to create the cross design on his back. In more recent years, he has moved away from his crowded arms to create works on his torso, including a religious scene depicting Jesus being carried by three cherubs, believed to represent him and his three sons, a scene of a woman in a forest over
the right-hand side of his chest and in 2010, added an image of Jesus below his ribcage. The image is based on a painting called The Man Of Sorrows by Catholic artist Matthew R. Brooks and is believed to be another tribute to his granfather Joe, who passed away aged 83 the year before. Speaking about how he chooses his designs, the iconic star has explained: ‘They’re about the important people in my life, who I want to have with me always.’ In fact, many of the body art is to honour his beloved family. For wife Victoria, designs include her name, ‘99’, the year of their wedding, ‘2006’, the year of their commitment ceremony, a depiction of her Brigitte Bardot-themed shoot for Pop magazine, a chain of 10 roses to mark their 10th anniversary.
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BRANDING AND SPORTS SUCCESS Turning winning into a brand promise
In the late years we have seen more and more how the big european teams go in their off seasons to parts of the world such as Asian and the Americas. This has been reflected in an exponential growth in their fanbase, which estimates that only Bayern Munich has a fanbase of at least 400 million people worldwide. That means, and only taking this team as an example, that at least 7% of the world population declares itself to be fan of one team. That could easily mean that there are more than 400 million people that could actually end up buying the team’s products, season kits, follow them on the social media and much more. Those are huge numbers.
But how did these teams achieve such success worldwide?
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NUMBER.1 First of all, by winning. As simple as that. Barcelona and Real Madrid have monopolized the Spanish league for at least the last 10 years, with the upcoming of Atletico de Madrid as a new contender on the recent years. In the same period of time Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and the powerhouse Manchester United have shown great success on the English Premier League. The Italian Calcio has been owned by Juventus on the last 5 years, and Bayern Munich has been the most dominant team at the German Bundesliga. These teams also brought this success to the international scene, with the conquest of international tournaments such as the Europa League and the UEFA Champions League. Winning has become part of their brand promise, and they can sell that sense of victory, accomplishment and quality that is represented in something as simple as a t shirt. Second of all, thanks to the development of media and marketing, the success of those teams can be now televised worldwide, either through televisions or web stream. This process, along with globalization has created a tendency where people in countries such as China or India, to follow teams playing thousands and miles away than to watch the local sports teams. Due to the high audiences captivated by the european competitions, the big teams realized how huge the market for their brands could end up being in these places.
The convergence of both sports success as a brand promise and globalization has turned victorious soccers teams into marketing powerhouses that make profit on how many games and competitions they win.
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NUMBER.1 Also, playing the game in a different way has been an important factor for the brand promises of these teams. In the 2008-2009 season the world saw the breakthrough of one of the most powerful teams ever seen by modern soccer. In that year the FC Barcelona Lead by Joseph Guardiola won every single tittle possible, in both the national and international contexts. This team made up completely by players for in the team’s quarry, along with the best player in the world: Lionel Messi, displayed the total soccer, or tiki taka, a philosophy displayed by the mythic Netherlands national team that reached two consecutive world cup finals. This philosophy, based in the control of the ball leaving aside a physical display changed soccer for good, that in that moment was more
physical than tactical. Since that moment the team has reached the round of 4 of the UEFA Champions League every year and has won the tournament 3 times. Real Madrid is now known worldwide as the most dangerous counter attacking team in the world speed of players such as Cristiano Ronald and Gareth Bale. In this fashion they won the 2014 UCL. The Italian teams as know for their fiery defensive performances, English teams by their game physicality and German teams for their order in the pitch, which brought them one UCL victory, and a World Cup. These styles of play represent the brands for every team, it sticks to the teams DNA, and this is what their audiences want to see.
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NUMBER.1 All these qualities imprinted in those teams DNA made their fanbases grow because the teams soccer quality are consistent. All these european teams are still displaying the best soccer seen worldwide by far. Even South American Soccer powerhouses look fragile such as River Plate, Boca Juniors or Santos are way behind the level of Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. This consistency is what makes a kid in India wake up at 3 am to watch an european soccer game. The cherry of the pie are the off season games. Those are the climax of marketing for the teams. They bring more new fans, stabilize the ones that already exist and make a ton of profit. For the team these games are preparation and tons of cash. Taking for example Liverpool F.C. They made up to 10 million dollars on their last off season games. That is just a huge amount of money with no noticeable expenses other than airplane tickets and hotels, which most of the times are paid by the sponsors of these type of matches. Only winner teams can have such a luxury thanks to what they have done in world soccer.
Easy money by winning a lot, sounds like an easy equation, but as all equations, is not as easy as it looks.
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NUMBER.1
WHAT MAKES A GREAT SPORTS LOGO? In recent days the newspaper USA Today released a list of the 30 best sports logo in the United States. The list takes College, University and Professional from several sports played in the country, going from soccer to basket, and having hockey, and football in-between. Also is important to say that the list consists and logos both used nowadays and old school not longer used logos. Our analysis will be based on the list’s top three logos. The first place in the list was given to the the Dallas Cowboys NFL Team, followed by the Golden State Warriors NBA Team, and the Major League Baseball MLB logo. Now lets see in depth what are the similarities between these three. First of all, the three of them are composed by simple and easy to understand shapes that are pretty straight forward. The Cowboys use a star, the Golden State Warriors have a silhouette of the Golden Gate encased in a blue circle, and the MLB is a baseball player silhouette encased inside a rounded rectangle. The simple shapes are followed by the use of a reduced palette of clean colors. These three logos use no more than 3 plain colors. The Cowboy’s star is blue and white, the Warriors is blue and yellow and the MLB is red blue and white. None of them use modern brand treatments like gradients or shadows and highlights that simulate volume. This characteristic helps the brand survival through time. These logos could last a long time without change due to the simple yet conscious way in which they were constructed. 10
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When your fanbase takes the whole demographic is important that the logo is easy to understand for 2 year old and 95 years old the same. Thats why these logos are not necessarily the most friendly or the more innovative, in fact they are pretty straight forward in what they are trying to communicate. There are not many hidden messages or shapes in these. The message is there, clear and not hidden at all. The Cowboys, a star that represents the state of Texas, the Warriors use the symbolic shape of the Golden Gate, an icon of the city of San Francisco, and the MLB have the silhouette of a Baseball player made by blue and red shapes that are closely related to the colors of the american flag. These elements are completely clear for any
person interacting with the logo. They all use symbols representative to the city, country or sport the team is representing. Let’s take into account logos that didn’t appear on the list. The Miami Heat or the Jacksonville Jaguars. A ball with fire doesn’t shout Miami, and it could be used pretty much for any team in the world they plays in a hot city. And the Jaguars are represented by an animal the doesn’t even live in the state of florida. Clearness and also an intelligent approach to symbols and icons that already represent the cities, states, countries or the sport is a trend that seems to be quite successful.
In conclusion, a modern and successful sports logo must have a mixture of elements that helps it go away from the trend that dominates actual marketing, where hiding messages and symbol inside a logo to be noticed after a meticulous inspection is an usual characteristic. The modern sports logo must go to the point, the message should be clear, the colors are very reduced and the shapes must be a combination between simple and iconic. 11
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The BAD and the
WORST
Porto Away AVERT YOUR EYES! The brownish color resembles something you may know
There are some lovely shirts in here ... but mostly awful ones. Everyone wants to know what their club will look like when they play their first game of next season. Some clubs are lucky enough to have a colour scheme so iconic - Juventus, AC Milan, Real Madrid - that a home kit rarely goes wrong. Others try to be a bit more creative and end up as wide of the mark as a Mario Balotelli long-ranger.
Real Madrid Away
Plenty use neon and it never, ever works.
Looks like something one might wear on the way home from the gym or to lounge around in
Having scoured the web for kits (with huge help from the excellent Footy Headlines) we’ve found some of the worst efforts for next season.
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Swansea City Away
Sturm Graz Home
V-Varen Nagasaki
Troyes Third Kit
Swansea's home shirt is a classic white with gold trim. This is horrible
Oh dear.
It's modelled on a tuxedo to celebrate the J-League club's 10th anniversary. Who knows why......
We're not sure what to make of this effort
What we’ve learnt...
DO’S
DONT’S
Stick to classic colour schemes and retro styles
Revert to awful neon if you can help it
Try and keep your kit free of gaudy sponsorship logos
Try to do too much
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT employ the Try and add a proper collar rather than designer of Austrian side Sturm Graz make it look like a t-shirt
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The Fast Track to
LOYALTY NASCAR offers marketers an impassioned fan base that leads the sports industry in brand loyalty NASCAR might still be considered a niche sport, but its reach is expanding and its fans could very well be the most brand-loyal in the sports industry, experts say. Corporate brands are part of the action for the Daytona Beach, Fla.-based National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing Inc. (NASCAR), their logos emblazoned on nearly every inch of the cars, and on the drivers themselves. Drivers regularly thank their sponsors in interviews—and fans are paying attention, says Bill Doyle, co-founder and vice president of Newport, R.I.based sports marketing research firm Performance Research.
“The sport is about telling stories and following it week to week, and having a favorite driver and engaging with the products. If you love Dale Earnhardt Jr., you’re going to drink Amp energy drinks. It all feeds into each other,” he says. “NASCAR drivers were trained early on to thank the sponsors, teaching the fans that the sponsors make the sport possible. When a driver won, all the way back to the ’70s and ’80s, the first thing the driver says is: ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my sponsor. We have to support our sponsors because without them, we wouldn’t have racing.’ At least 40% of NASCAR fans can correctly identify brands such as Coors Light, Chevrolet and Nationwide Insurance as NASCAR sponsors. Further, 14
“If you love Dale Earnhardt Jr, you’re going to drink Amp energy drinks. It all feeds into each other.”
NUMBER.1 76% of NASCAR fans are likely to consider a brand that’s an official NASCAR sponsor, and 75% would recommend a NASCARsponsoring brand, according to research conducted by Haddonfield, N.J.-based sports marketing research firm Turnkey Sports & Entertainment for Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal. “NASCAR fans are … loyal to the sport, and sponsors associate themselves with the sport in the hopes of transferring some of that loyalty onto their brands,” says Nicolay Panchev, Turnkey’s vice president of consumer research. According to Nielsen, NASCAR fans are 63% male and 37% female, and 49% are 55 years old or
older. Ninety-four percent are white, while 2% are Hispanic and 2% are black. In an effort to engage its existing fans, and also to expand beyond that predominantly white, male audience, NASCAR is looking to surveys, focus groups and consumer panels for insights, says Brian Moyer, managing director of market and media research at NASCAR. “We have an internal panel called the Official NASCAR Fan Council, which we utilize to better understand and communicate with our best customers, who we would call avid NASCAR fans. We harness their information to understand who they are and what makes them tick. We turn their feedback into insights
so we can be nimble to make the right changes on the racetrack to keep them excited about the sport.” The NASCAR fan base has expanded in recent years to include more consumers in the West and Northeast parts of the United States. “The Southeast part of the country was a very defined audience, but over the past 20 years, it’s become more general population, across the country, growing in different states,” Doyle says. “Ten or 15 years ago, NASCAR made a concerted effort to broaden their location base. The tracks used to only be in the Southeast, but they started opening tracks across the country in places like California and Las Vegas
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and Kansas. They also used to only be on ESPN, and once they signed with Fox and NBC, [that network coverage] brought the sport to a much more national audience.” Avid NASCAR fans are 36% more likely to plan to buy a new car, and twice as likely to plan to buy a new truck in the next 12 months, according to Nielsen. “The obvious draw is automotive culture: They’re much more likely to have a car and drive more miles, so they’re leaders in that area,” Moyer says.
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