It’s common to see airlines sponsor sports teams, as a way of getting their name out there. However, up until now I don’t recall an airline ever sponsoring a sports team even a couple of years before commencing operations.
Continue reading: Riyadh Air Sponsors Atlético De Madrid
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Somebody explain to me how is this a smart move, even when you have endless streams of money!
You miss the main point. This is yet another sportwashing move by Saudi Arabia. It's pretty much irrelevant whether the airline ever happens. The name of the Saudi capital will be viewed on football shirts by billions of people. It's all aimed at normalizing a repressive and murderous regime so that we all feel fine about it, travel to it and give it our money. Then it can survive when its oil runs out (or it can no longer sell it for environmental reasons).
While i saw the interview Tony Douglas gave to Richard quest, i still don't see how this makes sense. They plan to launch flights in the 2H 2025. Effective marketing for me would be to see the name of the airline on the jersey trikots and then i'd remember them when booking my flights. I'm sure Emirates has benefited a lot from that. Only in this case those fans who look for flights with the airline won't find them. A Sponsoring from next season would have made more sense but Saudis have money to set on fire.
The Saudi government seems to be on a kick to try to rehabilitate their image to normalize it by diving into the sports world with all their petrodollars. But they will continue with their dirty government business as usual while at it.
But this isn’t really all that unexpected. Playing a PR game while doing dirty government business is done by many countries around the world, including by a mix of countries — some of which are US allies that do have democratic elections to some (non-zero) extent or another — and do have a history of running or supporting assassination operations in other countries. India, for example, has been suspected of ramping up foreign assassination capabilities, and there is some suspicion they have conducted one or more in NATO countries within the last 21 months.
Would it honestly be better if the sponsor was Blackwater International, Raytheon, or Siemens or Unilever who like to keep doing business in Russia these days
I rather have the Saudis waste their money on sports than western governments funding new stadiums or propping up local clubs…
The saudis are the baddies sure. Are the UAE or Qatar really ‘better’ though?
Cause it seems to be okay to fawn over pretty emirates/Etihad/q-suites - but when the saudis come in it’s suddenly bad.
They are creating brand awareness. This is not senseless for a marketing professional.
Chelsea still needs a new shirt sponsor for this season. Looking at you, Global Airlines!