Vodafone has pulled the plug on its long-running sponsorship of the Formula One team McLaren, worth $75 million a year, after conducting a review of the deal on the back of last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix. It comes on the eve of the first race of the season in Australia and ends the mobile phone company’s association with Formula One racing that stretches back more than a decade. Morten Lundal, chief commercial officer at Vodafone, said the decision to part ways with McLaren was a sign of the times. “Our brand is evolving, and we’ve concluded we will have less need for this kind of exposure in future.”
Vodafone has been reconsidering its involvement with Formula One since bitter acrimony broke out in April over the Bahrain Grand Prix, which went ahead despite a
violent uprising in the country in which thousands of anti-government protesters confronted police. Bahrain’s 2011 race was cancelled because of civil unrest and last year’s event became a rallying point for dissatisfaction with the Gulf state’s regime. Activists declared three “days of rage” to coincide with the GP, in contrast to the country’s Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, who insisted that the event was “a force for good”. As Formula One teams looked on nervously, Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s chief executive, insisted on proceeding with the race on the grounds that “it’s not our business running the country”. Corporate sponsors such as Vodafone pulled their hospitality plans but could do little to press for the removal of their branding from the cars because of the structure of sponsorship deals. Vodafone was particularly sensitive to events during the Arab Spring after it was forced by armed forces to shut down its network in Egypt in January 2011 and send out a text message on behalf of the Mubarak government to “confront the traitors and criminals”. The British company became a lightning rod for criticism by activist groups both within Egypt and in the UK and the prospect of its brand appearing on racing cars during the Bahrain uprising threatened to backfire on the company a year later. The McLaren deal, which was signed in 2007, is the last of Vodafone’s grand global sponsorship campaigns, which have cost the company hundreds of millions of pounds. The Brazilian Grand Prix in late November will be the final event to feature the Vodafone logo on Formula One cars. Its logo has disappeared from the England cricket team’s shirts, Manchester United jerseys, Ferrari racing cars and the Uefa Champions League over the past decade. It also ended its sponsorship of the Australian cricket team last year. McClaren has already kicked off the search for a replacement sponsor and has been strongly linked with another telecoms company. TelMex, better known as América Móvil, is the Mexican business controlled by the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, and has been linked with the deal. Mr Slim, who has a fortune worth $73 billion, has been strongly aligned with Sergio Perez, the young Mexican driver who replaced Lewis Hamilton at McLaren this season. The 50-year-old British team refused to comment on whether TelMex would fill the void left by Vodafone but one source said that a number of high profile corporate sponsors, such as Rolex and Emirates airline, had recently signed deals to back the sport. “It’s not cut and dried,” said the source.
03-15-2013, 01:10 AM
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