Tag: Sports

So Get A Replacement

Marketing / Advertising, Sports

Seems like Britishland’s little darling has been having problems:

Emma Raducan, 21, shot to fame after winning the US Open in 2021 as an 18-year-old. She had been handed a £125,000 911 Carrera GTS Cabriolet under a lucrative sponsorship with the luxury motor brand which began in 2022.

However, what sponsors giveth, they may also taketh away:

However, last month Raducanu saw her pride and joy taken from her after the company “took it back”.  One of her associates is quoted by the Daily Mail as saying: “Emma no longer has a Porsche.  They took it back. It used to have pride of place at her home.”

Porsche has a history of suddenly pulling the plug on sponsorship deals they do not feel are value for money, including when athletes are not meeting expectations.

…and our little girl has won pretty much nada  since her US Open victory, so perhaps it was unsurprising.

Anyway, she had a two-word comment of joy the other day, because apparently Porsche gave her another one (I suppose because they didn’t want to look like the heartless bastards they are).

Had I been a well-paid tennis star going through a bad patch, I know what my two-word response would have been after the snatchback:  “Hello, Ferrari.”

Along with several more words, few of them printable in a newspaper, and not very complimentary towards Porsche either.

But that’s just me.

Afterthought:  Of course, Emma could always have gone with Mercedes, judging by their own recent losing record in Formula One… kindred spirits, so to speak. [/snark]

For Pity’s Sake

Sports

Aaaaaargh apparently “our” Dallas Mavericks are taking on Boston’s Celtics in the annual championship netball game tonight.

This means that for the next ten days or so the only thing that I’ll hear, on any media channel, will be basketballbasketballbasketballbasketballbasketball, which interests me less than stories of Kim Kardashian’s ingrown toenail.

It’s not the games per se  that bore me to tears (although why anyone bothers to watch the first three quarters of any pro basketball game is beyond me).   No, what drives me into an absolute coma is the endless commentary both before and after, mostly by pundits whose last basketball game was with their teenage sons in the driveway.

Charles Barkley?  Larry Bird?  Magic?  Michael Jordan?  Them, I’ll listen to… perhaps.  But when the talk becomes something along the lines of “when he drives to the paint for a layup” is when I reach for the on/off switch and/or the Southern Comfort.

And oy… try finding a bar around here which won’t have the pre-game prognostications, the game highlights, the post-game blather, all at earsplitting volume… as Doc Russia so often says:

“The game itself:  fine.  People talking about the game:  ugh.”

I don’t even do that shit when it’s a sport I love — cricket, football, F1, women’s professional nude gymnastics* etc. — and when it’s stupid basketball or Australian underwater wrist-wrestling…

Pass.

*Okay there’s no such sport, but there should be.

The Way It Used To Be

Drive Time, Entertainment

I don’t know if you had any plans for the next eight hours, but here’s one way to spend them.

Racing the way it used to be and quite honestly still should, especially when it comes to the sound of the engines.

Footnote from former bandmate Knob, who lives there and knowing my love for F1, sent me the link:

We watched from the roof terrace at Café Milano. Best place on the track. Hired by the Bentley Drivers Club UK by my buddy Mark, who is also great mates with one-time F1 Champion Jody Schecter.  Jody just sold his F1 car collection on Saturday at Sotheby’s Monaco auction. Got €6.7m for his Ferrari 312T !!

Also, went to the Eddie Jordan chat with Red Bull designer Adrian Newey on Saturday evening at the Yacht Club. Some interesting stories.

Must be nice to be one of the Idle Rich…

Karma Smiles

Marketing / Advertising, Sports

Two headlines that had me chuckling, when seen one after the other:

…and then:

So their lesbians beat our lesbians.  (I know, this whole Lesbo World Cup is of little interest over in this corner of Teh Intarwebz, being a) soccer and b) womyns’ sports, but stay with me here.)

This whole non-singing of the national anthem — when you have been chosen to represent your country — has stuck in my craw since Day One.  By not singing the anthem, what you’re saying is that this is not a momentous privilege but just another thing you have to do before signing that lucrative endorsement deal.

And then kvetching when you don’t get that lucrative endorsement deal.

I know, I know:  it’s their First Amendment right and all that, but people need to understand that sometimes there are consequences to actions, and this would be one of those times.

I’m no longer an executive in this business but if I were, there is absolutely no way I would sign up one of these unpatriotic and ungrateful assholes and pay them some large sum of money, because in all good faith I couldn’t show them wearing the Team USA shirt (on the Wheaties packet, for example) when they’ve basically indicated that wearing said shirt is anathema to them.

Enjoy your stay in Oblivion City, shitbirds.