Best Buy is a Minnesota-based company that runs big box stores selling electronics and appliances, while Grupo Bimbo is a Mexico-based food conglomerate whose namesake products are bread and other baked goods.
They may sound like radically different companies. Yet the two now have something in common, as Best Buy is hoping to follow the lead of Bimbo in boosting its public image among sports fans.
Best Buy is going to be a sponsor of a professional sports team – specifically the Chicago Fire, the Second City’s soccer team that plays in the awkwardly-named Major League Soccer.
They may sound like radically different companies. Yet the two now have something in common, as Best Buy is hoping to follow the lead of Bimbo in boosting its public image among sports fans.
Best Buy is going to be a sponsor of a professional sports team – specifically the Chicago Fire, the Second City’s soccer team that plays in the awkwardly-named Major League Soccer.
Yes, it’s true. Best Buy’s logo, the innocuous yellow tag with the company name in black block letters, will now adorn the uniforms of the Fire, whose team colors are red and white with blue trim.
If the Fire are able to amount to anything in the world of real football (not the stupid little game the Chicago Bears played so badly this year), the sight of the Best Buy logo could become associated with Chicago, since many photographs are going to be disseminated of soccer players with the logo on the lower front part of their jerseys.
It will literally be the same as the Bimbo logo, which is the butt of many jokes from unknowing sports fans who see the word in the colorful script printed on the jerseys of many soccer teams in the Mexican Futbol League, and assume it is a sign that the players are sexually promiscuous.
Memo Ochoa of the Club America soccer team is one of just many Mexican League soccer players who promote the Bimbo brand name. It’s really just an ad for a Mexican-made type of white bread that is similar in texture and taste to that staple of any All-American childhood, Wonder Bread. The brand’s logo also includes a cutesy blue and white bear that is about as un-sexual as one can get.
If this sounds strange to a U.S. sports mentality, one needs to keep in mind that many Latin American sports teams cover their uniforms with corporate logos galore.
A professional athlete in either the Mexican Leagues of baseball or soccer can easily shill for Bimbo bread, Mexicana Airlines and Carta Blanca beer simultaneously, making them walking billboards.
The cheesiest Mexican sports ad placement I have ever seen? It has to be for Cerveza Sol. The beer brewer likes to put its logo, which spells out in red and gold lettering the word “Sol” (Spanish for Sun) on the derriere of the short shorts that are a standard part of the uniform worn by Mexican soccer team cheerleaders.
The trend exists for athletic teams from throughout Latin America, and I also have seen such advertising on the uniforms of sports teams from Japan and other Asian nations.
The Japan national baseball team that won the World Baseball Classic tournament in 2006 wore logos for Asahi-brand soft drinks on their shoulders and Konami-brand video games on their batting helmets.
The United States seems to be the only place on Earth where athletic teams think they are holding on to something sacred by not selling uniform space for advertisers.
Until now, that is.
From the sound of it, the new Chicago Fire uniforms that are expected to be unveiled Tuesday at a Best Buy store in southwest suburban Burbank (the team itself plays in a new stadium in the neighboring town of Bridgeview) are going to be less cluttered than their Mexican counterparts.
For now, there will be one logo for Best Buy, although it will be on the lower part of the front of the jersey just under the team logo, which is meant to vaguely resemble a traditional firefighter’s shield.
If the Fire continue to play well (the team won a championship for Chicago in its first season of existence and usually puts together winning records and contending teams), Best Buy stands to get some great publicity in sports sections of newspapers and on sports-related web sites all across the United States.
Sports purists will shudder, claiming this is the decline of society as we know it.
Of course, part of the problem with our society today is that we allow the goofs who follow sports to a ridiculous extreme to think of themselves as the norm, rather than as a pack of guys in serious need of a life away from sports talk radio.
Perhaps it doesn’t bother me because I’ve gotten used to seeing the pictures of Mexican League baseball players and watching Mexican League soccer on WSNS and WGBO – the Telemundo and Univision affiliates for the Chicago television market.
The logos seem to vanish after a short time, as the activity on the playing field takes control. It will be Cuahtemoc Blanco scoring a goal, not the Best Buy mascot.
Besides, professional sports have always been willing to sell out in exchange for a few bucks.
How else to explain the mass of advertising billboards that existed on the outfield walls of old-time baseball stadiums. Many fans now claim those ads, for products ranging from Chesterfield cigarettes to Schaeffer beer, helped give the stadiums part of their character.
Current stadiums are inundated with advertising messages and jingles on virtually every part of their façade. Many even carry the name of a corporation as part of their very identity.
Sports fans in Chicago follow their professional athletic teams in buildings named for United Airlines, U.S. Cellular phone service, Wrigley-brand chewing gum and Japanese automaker Toyota. So don’t tell me about the purity of American sports. Teams are more than willing to take corporate cash whenever they can get it.
It was only a matter of time before the uniform space was sold as well.
In light of such an attitude, it would only be appropriate if Bimbo bread were to try to spread its influence in the United States (their products can be found in select grocery stores that specialize in importing Mexican brands). Perhaps they could become jersey sponsors for multiple sports teams in the United States.
American teams could go around wearing the word “Bimbo” on their jerseys. Then again, it would only be fitting if U.S. team owners wore the logo, for they are the ones who are willing to sell out – if the money’s right.
-30-
EDITOR’S NOTES: The Fire’s willingness to take millions of dollars to shill for Best Buy is detailed here. http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?post_date=2008-01-14&id=27753
All teams in U.S. soccer’s professional league are expected to eventually have jersey sponsors, as detailed in this old report. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/sports/soccer/25soccer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Bimbo wants to become a viable collection of food products in the United States, as explained here. http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/
And for those of you who thought the Chicago Fire was a long-defunct team in the 1970s-era World Football League, read here. http://chicago.fire.mlsnet.com/t100/index.jsp
If this sounds strange to a U.S. sports mentality, one needs to keep in mind that many Latin American sports teams cover their uniforms with corporate logos galore.
A professional athlete in either the Mexican Leagues of baseball or soccer can easily shill for Bimbo bread, Mexicana Airlines and Carta Blanca beer simultaneously, making them walking billboards.
The cheesiest Mexican sports ad placement I have ever seen? It has to be for Cerveza Sol. The beer brewer likes to put its logo, which spells out in red and gold lettering the word “Sol” (Spanish for Sun) on the derriere of the short shorts that are a standard part of the uniform worn by Mexican soccer team cheerleaders.
The trend exists for athletic teams from throughout Latin America, and I also have seen such advertising on the uniforms of sports teams from Japan and other Asian nations.
The Japan national baseball team that won the World Baseball Classic tournament in 2006 wore logos for Asahi-brand soft drinks on their shoulders and Konami-brand video games on their batting helmets.
The United States seems to be the only place on Earth where athletic teams think they are holding on to something sacred by not selling uniform space for advertisers.
Until now, that is.
From the sound of it, the new Chicago Fire uniforms that are expected to be unveiled Tuesday at a Best Buy store in southwest suburban Burbank (the team itself plays in a new stadium in the neighboring town of Bridgeview) are going to be less cluttered than their Mexican counterparts.
For now, there will be one logo for Best Buy, although it will be on the lower part of the front of the jersey just under the team logo, which is meant to vaguely resemble a traditional firefighter’s shield.
If the Fire continue to play well (the team won a championship for Chicago in its first season of existence and usually puts together winning records and contending teams), Best Buy stands to get some great publicity in sports sections of newspapers and on sports-related web sites all across the United States.
Sports purists will shudder, claiming this is the decline of society as we know it.
Of course, part of the problem with our society today is that we allow the goofs who follow sports to a ridiculous extreme to think of themselves as the norm, rather than as a pack of guys in serious need of a life away from sports talk radio.
Perhaps it doesn’t bother me because I’ve gotten used to seeing the pictures of Mexican League baseball players and watching Mexican League soccer on WSNS and WGBO – the Telemundo and Univision affiliates for the Chicago television market.
The logos seem to vanish after a short time, as the activity on the playing field takes control. It will be Cuahtemoc Blanco scoring a goal, not the Best Buy mascot.
Besides, professional sports have always been willing to sell out in exchange for a few bucks.
How else to explain the mass of advertising billboards that existed on the outfield walls of old-time baseball stadiums. Many fans now claim those ads, for products ranging from Chesterfield cigarettes to Schaeffer beer, helped give the stadiums part of their character.
Current stadiums are inundated with advertising messages and jingles on virtually every part of their façade. Many even carry the name of a corporation as part of their very identity.
Sports fans in Chicago follow their professional athletic teams in buildings named for United Airlines, U.S. Cellular phone service, Wrigley-brand chewing gum and Japanese automaker Toyota. So don’t tell me about the purity of American sports. Teams are more than willing to take corporate cash whenever they can get it.
It was only a matter of time before the uniform space was sold as well.
In light of such an attitude, it would only be appropriate if Bimbo bread were to try to spread its influence in the United States (their products can be found in select grocery stores that specialize in importing Mexican brands). Perhaps they could become jersey sponsors for multiple sports teams in the United States.
American teams could go around wearing the word “Bimbo” on their jerseys. Then again, it would only be fitting if U.S. team owners wore the logo, for they are the ones who are willing to sell out – if the money’s right.
-30-
EDITOR’S NOTES: The Fire’s willingness to take millions of dollars to shill for Best Buy is detailed here. http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?post_date=2008-01-14&id=27753
All teams in U.S. soccer’s professional league are expected to eventually have jersey sponsors, as detailed in this old report. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/sports/soccer/25soccer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Bimbo wants to become a viable collection of food products in the United States, as explained here. http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/
And for those of you who thought the Chicago Fire was a long-defunct team in the 1970s-era World Football League, read here. http://chicago.fire.mlsnet.com/t100/index.jsp
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