[WRC] News & Rumours 2019

[Rallyper]

The negativeness from non ecological environmental responsibility is on all sports, actually. Not only motorsports as some people are arguing. Same amount of pollution or even more from big games as football, cricket, ishockey or whatever... I´m thinking of spectators in 100 000´s ...

[Mirek]

Yes but that's something different because the negative effect is not directly connected with the sporting activity itself and it's not promoted by the activity. The point is that for some people and some potential sponsors motorsport is simply something they refuse in principle because it represents something wrong for them. In fact it's rather impossible to find a bulletproof argument against that because in general they are right.

[Allez Andruet]

And secend, remember that rally is now live to watch on screen. So you see a lot more action (no boring waiting) and the sponsors now get far more coverage.

While I'm not denying that as such, we have to remember that it's basically the same with all sports nowadays. The reach of basically every single sporting event on the planet has grown into astronomical levels, so rally has only narrowed the gap (vs. others) if anything. And in addition to the wider reach, there's also a huge amount of new sports competing for the same sponsor money. And - if that wasn't enough - the global media trend of "big getting bigger" (the recent merger of AT&T and Time Warner serving as an example of that on the most extreme scale, or the merger of Telia and Bonnier on much smaller scale - the point is that it happens on all levels and regions) means that the broadcasting money is more and more centralized towards to the biggest leagues of the most popular sports. It doesn't make life any easier for anyone (whether it's a driver or a manager) trying to secure funding for any sort of rally program.

[Myrvold]

Is there any other sport where a sponsor follows the world champion to whichever team he's with, like RB have with Ogier ?

You do have some football players that uses different equipment from the rest of the squad due to sponsors (this is not popular in the teams though).
Alonso and Santander in F1 was connected.

But basically RB does this with proper RB-drivers, either continues as a personal sponsor, or goes in as some sort of sponsor for the team as well.

[the sniper]

Yes but that's something different because the negative effect is not directly connected with the sporting activity itself and it's not promoted by the activity. The point is that for some people and some potential sponsors motorsport is simply something they refuse in principle because it represents something wrong for them. In fact it's rather impossible to find a bulletproof argument against that because in general they are right.

Exactly. It's perception.

Funnily enough a couple of months ago I came across the document below while randomly looking up big companies that I thought theoretically could be involved in rallying. I came across this document from Telia (no doubt many of you are familiar with it, but it's a big phone services provider across Scandinavia and the Baltic states, prime rally country) where they particularly rule out motor sport sponsorship in their group marketing instructions:

Requirement 8
Sponsorships and donations cannot be
o related to political support (i.e. to political parties, politicians or related institutions)
o conducted in a way that it can be interpreted as a political payment or bribery
o related to the process of obtaining or retaining business from the recipient, i.e. it must be
ensured that the person who has the power to make business decisions, such as
awarding contracts, licenses or permits, is not involved in the sponsored object
o provided to individuals
o provided to organizations, activities or events believed to be discriminating or unethical,
e.g. related to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, weapons, pornography
o provided to activities or events that will have significant negative environmental impact,
e.g. motor sports and activities which include handing out a large amount of disposables
o provided to religious or military activities

From Page 4: https://www.teliacompany.com/globala...-donations.pdf

Look at the stuff motors sport joins on that list... This is why at least the upper level rallying going electric in some form is not a choice, it's an absolute necessity if the WRC in particular is going to continue to exist in a few years. Hopefully we can get away with just going down the hybrid route and retaining the ICE element, not going full electric.

[Francis44]

Exactly. It's perception.

Funnily enough a couple of months ago I came across the document below while randomly looking up big companies that I thought theoretically could be involved in rallying. I came across this document from Telia (no doubt many of you are familiar with it, but it's a big phone services provider across Scandinavia and the Baltic states, prime rally country) where they particularly rule out motor sport sponsorship in their group marketing instructions:



From Page 4: https://www.teliacompany.com/globala...-donations.pdf

Look at the stuff motors sport joins on that list... This is why at least the upper level rallying going electric in some form is not a choice, it's an absolute necessity if the WRC in particular is going to continue to exist in a few years. Hopefully we can get away with just going down the hybrid route and retaining the ICE element, not going full electric.

You would be foolish to believe those same exact companies would ever have any significant interest in the WRC even if it was fully electric. Environmental impact is not only about emissions, it is also about the considerable amount of trash and visual pollution created during those events.

Unfortunately for some companies no matter how you dress it, motorsport will never be a viable marketing tool.

[janvanvurpa]

It is also objectively the most boring sport on earth where 99% of the game time nothing is happening.

Fotbol is a virtual epileptic frenzy compared with American baseball. And relatively jumping compared to American (so called) Football..
3.2 seconds average play followed by 1-10 minutes of standing around...

Canadian curling is action packed compared to the Merikuhn sports.

[Rallyper]

Exactly. It's perception.

Funnily enough a couple of months ago I came across the document below while randomly looking up big companies that I thought theoretically could be involved in rallying. I came across this document from Telia (no doubt many of you are familiar with it, but it's a big phone services provider across Scandinavia and the Baltic states, prime rally country) where they particularly rule out motor sport sponsorship in their group marketing instructions:



From Page 4: https://www.teliacompany.com/globala...-donations.pdf

Look at the stuff motors sport joins on that list... This is why at least the upper level rallying going electric in some form is not a choice, it's an absolute necessity if the WRC in particular is going to continue to exist in a few years. Hopefully we can get away with just going down the hybrid route and retaining the ICE element, not going full electric.

Well, those arguments from Telia just show their lack of understanding. In their eyes only motorsports has "significant negative environmental impacts"? RUBBISH!

If they said "we don´t like motorsports so we don´t sponsor it" I wouldn´t say anything. It´s their thing. But those arguments are not true. All sports does significant negative negative impact..

[denkimi]

Exactly. It's perception.

Funnily enough a couple of months ago I came across the document below while randomly looking up big companies that I thought theoretically could be involved in rallying. I came across this document from Telia (no doubt many of you are familiar with it, but it's a big phone services provider across Scandinavia and the Baltic states, prime rally country) where they particularly rule out motor sport sponsorship in their group marketing instructions:

From Page 4: https://www.teliacompany.com/globala...-donations.pdf

Look at the stuff motors sport joins on that list... This is why at least the upper level rallying going electric in some form is not a choice, it's an absolute necessity if the WRC in particular is going to continue to exist in a few years. Hopefully we can get away with just going down the hybrid route and retaining the ICE element, not going full electric.

all that means is they have a CEO or some other high executive who is not a motorsport fan.

al that needs to happen is for some good friend to take that CEO to some rally's, get them to like it and boom, telia wil sponsor motorsport.

[Mirek]

It wouldn't help anything to pretend that it's not an issue. It is a very real issue and the number of such companies is growing steadily. Add to that current imperfect situation of car industry. Previous years were perfect but 2018 sales already got into negative numbers - with few exceptions of course. It's likely that the situation will not get any better in 2019 or 2020 but we'll see.