The Branding of Australian Cricket: CULTURE, COMMERCE, CRICKET and the BAGGY GREEN CAP
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1 The Branding of Australian Cricket: CULTURE, COMMERCE, CRICKET AND THE BAGGY GREEN CAP Richard Cashman is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is also Director of the Australian Centre for Olympic Studies at that institution. He has previously written a number of books on Australian cricket and is currently involved in a project on the history of the baggy green cap. Introduction The practice of 'branding' has become so commonplace in contemporary sport that sports followers hardly notice, let alone protest against, players covered from head to toe with commercial logos. Competitions and stadia are now named after sponsors and events frequently change names to reflect a new sponsor. Trophy presentation ceremonies usually include a word from the sponsors and effusive thanks to them for their generosity, almost as if this munificence were given gratis. Branding is a component of globalisation and features in the burgeoning literature on this subject. Hans Westerbeek and Aaron Smith assess that the most 'dominant existing brands' in the world — such as Coca Cola in the United States and BP in Britain — 'must be responsible for billions of dollars of economic activity' so the owners rightly 'covet, bolster and protect the brands'. They add that 'there are few nations that can claim to possess more than a handful of brands' that have the potential for economic exploitation.1 The authors also quote FutureBrand's 2003 top ten most valuable team brands, headed by the Dallas Cowboys, Manchester United and the Washington Redskins. Westerbeek and Smith elaborate on the nature of branding as follows: A brand is the extended story of a product, expressed in a logo and extended visual imagery. It is symbolism that is widely understood by the (to be) converted members of the product clan. Global organisations, through their branding, attempt to tell stories about their products that will capture the imagination of the global clan ... However, geographically dispersed tribes have their own rituals, their own heroes, and to a certain extent, their own symbols as well ...2 Sporting Traditions, vol. 23, no. 1 (November 2006), pp. 1-16. Published by the Australian Society for Sports History. 2 sportingTRADITIONS VOLUME 23 no 1 NOVEMBER 2006 In their view, 'The challenge of truly international brands therefore is to stand for something that appeals to "all" people, while incorporating opportunities to extend the brand for cultural niche markets'.3 Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, has argued that a brand is something strong and powerful 'that creates an emotion in a person's mind', which can be positive or negative.4 Miller, Lawrence, McKay and Rowe have noted the tensions and discontinuities between global and local brands. Manchester United has become a truly global brand with its own satellite and cable services servicing its 100 million fans around the globe. The cost of this lofty status has been the reduction of the club's regional and national ties.5 When John Hart was appointed coach of the New Zealand All Blacks in the mid-1990s, he attempted to introduce a 'corporate-based approach' and to transform the All Blacks into 'a great international sporting brand', replicating the Manchester United model. Hart aimed to broaden the appeal of the All Blacks to make them a symbol of rugby excellence, rather than the most public symbol of New Zealand. He believed that such a strategy would appeal to countless fans in global rugby, thereby transforming a small market — New Zealand having a population of approximately four million — into an international global market. Hart recognised that this could only be achieved by diminishing the regional and national associations of the All Blacks (along similar lines to Manchester United). He added that 'many people are uncomfortable when they hear the All Blacks talked about as a brand and rugby described as a product' because of the perceived threat that this posed to 'New Zealand culture'.6 The All Blacks are the most prominent sporting symbol and brand of New Zealand and legions wear the All Black jersey, with the silver fern (or some variation of this uniform) to proclaim their New Zealandness or an attraction to the All Black team. Sporting clubs (leagues and associations) have many options when faced with globalisation and do not necessarily have to follow the path of Manchester United. Miller et al. present case studies that show how various sports seek to accommodate, mediate or resist globalising pressures according to their specific histories and geographies, institutional frameworks and structures of culture.7 Australian cricket, like New Zealand rugby, has developed a significant brand in the baggy green cap. It is the one of the best-known sporting brands in the country, enjoying a similar pre-eminent status in Australia to the All Black black jersey in New Zealand. Both brands draw heavily on the weight of tradition and the success of Australia in cricket and New Zealand in rugby. The branding paths pursued by sports marketers in the two countries, however, are markedly different. The baggy green cap has been treated as an exclusive symbol that includes no sponsor logos and is not available for sale. It can be worn only by an elite band of 397 players (by April 2006) who have Richard Cashman The Branding of Australian Cricket: Culture, Commerce, Cricket and the Baggy Green Cap 3 earned the right to wear the baggy green cap after selection in the national side. By contrast, the All Black jersey, featuring the silver fern, has been widely marketed to the general public. The New Zealand Rugby Union even altered the jersey around 2000 in part because of a sponsorship deal with Adidas.8 While it is not yet worn on the global scale of the New York Yankees or the Chicago Bulls brands, it is genuinely popular both within and outside New Zealand. Issues This article will consider a number of issues. First, there will be a discussion of the longer history of the baggy green cap in order to understand how it evolved over time to become such an iconic symbol. There have been relatively few studies of the pre-commercial evolution of brands, before the era of hyper-commercialism from the 1970s. Robert Barney, Stephen Wenn and Scott Martyn, for example, include a history of the most powerful international sports brand in their book, Selling the Five Rings. When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Pierre de Coubertin fashioned this symbol for his private use in 1913 he had little idea that he had conceived what would become 'a commercial gold mine'.9 The need to protect the brand was recognised by Avery Brundage in the 1930s and 1940. He had a long-running and celebrated confrontation with Los Angeles bread impresario, Paul H. Helms, whose bread was advertised as Olympic bread at the time of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Helms wished to retain the Olympic association, and the five rings, on his bread after 1932. Ironically it was not until the 1980s that the IOC achieved protection for its brand enabling it to tap into a 'commercial gold mine' with sponsors. The use of the five rings by carefully selected sponsor companies was a core element of The Olympic Program (TOP) which was an immensely lucrative venture introduced in the 1980s to attract sponsorship revenue. The word 'brand' features prominently in a recent book by IOC marketing director Michael Payne. The subtitle of his 2006 book, Olympic Turnaround, is How the Olympic Games Stepped Back from the Brink of Extinction to Become the World's Best Known Brand.10 A second objective of this article is to explore the extended story, to use the phrase of Westerbeek and Smith, of the baggy green cap. How has this cultural icon 'captured the imagination' of Australian cricketers and the cricket public? What emotions does the baggy green cap evoke? This article draws on and extends the discussion on the evolution of the baggy green cap previously published in Sport in the National Imagination.11 A third aim is to understand how Cricket Australia and Australian cricket players have attempted to promote the brand and why there are limits to the commercial exploitation of it. Why has Cricket Australia chosen a different 4 sportingTRADITIONS VOLUME 23 no 1 NOVEMBER 2006 path from the IOC and not sought greater commercial advantage from a unique brand? Finally the article will consider the response of Cricket Australia, and cricket as a sport more generally, to globalisation. In a recent study on cricket governance and globalisation, Peter Lamb has pointed out the peculiar character of cricket as a global sport in that international cricket is based on the monopoly status of national teams. Its leading international players, unlike soccer players, are not free to pursue market opportunities and to seek to transfer to the highest bidder. Cricketers at the highest level represent their respective nation and are controlled by national cricket boards. Lamb adds that 'the particular nature of competition and interest in international cricket is closely connected to the historical, political and cultural links between the nations ... cricket is also hard-wired to conserve its historical culture, or what is often referred to as the "spirit of the game'".12 So is the elevation of the baggy green cap in recent decades linked to a campaign of cultural conservation? The Baggy Green Cap and its Elevation There are many distinctive features of the cap. It is one of the oldest brands in Australian and world sport, pre-dating the five rings and many contemporary brands, such as Nike, which became prominent from the 1970s.