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Manchester United Stars Ignore Sponsored Corvettes, Prefer Range Rovers and Porsches

10K views 110 replies 43 participants last post by  Dr.Show-Me 
#1 ·
Manchester United Stars Ignore Sponsored Corvettes, Prefer Range Rovers and Porsches
Autoevolution

When we reviewed the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette, we were impressed with the versatility and the sheer performance of the American icon. Apparently, Machester United’s stars couldn’t care less about this, with the footballers simply ignoring the free ‘Vette coming from sponsor Chevrolet, preferring to drive their lavish rides instead. Spoiler alert: none of these is a sportscar.

Back in April, Chevrolet delivered a fleet of cars to Manchester United. A total of fifteen vehicles were sent, including Camaros and Corvettes. As multiple sources in the UK report, the cars have been gathering dust ever since, with the stars deciding to stick to their own vehicles.

For instance, Robin Van Persie was recently spotted in his Porsche - a Panamera, while captain Wayne Rooney clearly loves his Range Rover, considering he has gone for the Overfinch-customized model.

Assistant manager Ryan Giggs also drives a Range Rover, albeit a stock one, while middlefielder Marouane Fellaini uses a Mercedes-Benz ML to get around. Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal does drive a Chevrolet Captiva, but this is reportedly his own car.

This is part of a GBP 350 million (USD 564.8 million or EUR 442.92 million) seven-year deal Chevrolet signed with the team back in 2012. Nonetheless, driving the cars isn’t mandatory by contract, with the move being a voluntary driving program.

After all, how can you expect people to believe in the message the sponsorship aims to send out, when the members of the team themselves have chosen to stick with other car brands?

More at link
 
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#2 ·
This sounds similar to how NFL players are still wearing Beats headphones instead of NFL sponsored Bose headphones. People like what they like, and forcing someone to "like" something because you are paying them is dumb.

Still curious to see if Lebron James drives a Kia...
 
#8 ·
I wouldn't mind driving a Panamera as my daily driver!!
If you have the money... there is absolutely no problem driving an image car as your daily driver.


A couple problems with Corvette:
1) It's LHD in a RHD country.
2) It's not really a high-profile, image car.
 
#13 ·
Pretty much. Hundred million here, hundred million there, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE???
 
#11 ·
Why don't they get them some SS'? Silverado High Country's? Tahoe LTZs?
 
#16 ·
The relationship between Audi and Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United was obvious - both were successful, with substantial international presence.

In the opposite sense the relationship between the current Manchester United and Chevrolet is obvious, neither is successful and neither has an international presence.
 
#17 · (Edited)
they also ignored Audis (which had steering wheel on the right side)

BTW. Here's he most important quote of the article:

Nonetheless, driving the cars isn’t mandatory by contract, with the move being a voluntary driving program.
I am neither a hater of that sponsorship deal nor an enthusiast. But for God's sake. That amount of money for the contract and no obligation to drive the cars?
 
#18 ·
So why did GM decide to sponsor a soccer team in the UK?
 
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#20 ·
Because Manchester United was a successful team at the time, with a good record in European competition and a huge fan base around the world who watched all their matches on satellite TV - Chevrolet was trying to project itself as a global brand.

But between signing the deal and it appearing on team shirts, both Manchester United and Chevrolet Europe had bombed making the deal worthless.
 
#28 ·
after years of always having 2 door cars, i gave in and all mine have 4 doors. just easier when having extra passangers or stuff.
europeans have always been more practical with car choices. for example hatchbacks have always outsold sedans as they can load larger items.
 
#30 · (Edited)
These guys make so much money, a Corvette is irrelevant to them....Last night Chevy gave a Colorado to the MVP of World Series SF Giants pitcher Bumgarner....the Chevy guy stumbled badly through the short introduction. Bumgarner could care less, it's just a bad placement....To a multimillionaire it's like getting new pair of underwear for Xmass.....whoopee!
 
#40 ·
Here's the problem. MadBum is a country boy. He drives his massive lifted F350 to AT&T Park. He loves his truck. He also drives the massive Infiniti QX80.
So... he's gonna care about a Colorado? Bad product placement. Wrong product. But MadBum is a big truck guy, so he might add it to his collection.
 
#44 · (Edited)
Thousands of "poor, broke fans" wearing their $80 each Nike soccer jersey everywhere sporting a big CHEVROLET logo on it is a bad thing ?? Locally [Miami] they sell out whenever ****'s/ Sports Authority have them in stock.....at $80 each....home and away version.
Must be making Nike plenty and Chevrolet peanuts. They actually look great and show off the bowtie very well..

 
#46 ·
Do people really buy products because the company who made the product is a sponsor of your beloved club? Especially something expensive like a car? I doubt it.

Sometimes it is the other way around, at least for me and a few millions other German soccer fans. :p:

Heja BVB




David vs Goliath

 
#50 ·
Do people really buy products because the company who made the product is a sponsor of your beloved club? Especially something expensive like a car? I doubt it.
In most cases product sponsorship doesn't matter to me but on a smaller, more local scale there are times when a local company will be a sponsor or advertiser with the Calgary Flames or Stamps and I'll purchase from them because of that fact.
 
#47 ·
Ha ha ha ha...I'm sorry, but this is so stupid in every way possible. From Chevy paying for advertising where they don't even sell cars any more, to football players who could care less to drive them, to GM giving them free vehicles that they could sell for a profit, to giving them cars that are left hand drive in a right hand drive country... You guys sure that this is not a script to one of the unreleased episodes of The Office?
 
#51 · (Edited)
Webster defines a sports car as such: sports car - a small low car with a high-powered engine; usually seats two persons. So a Porsche Panamera IS NOT a sports car. And anyone who thinks it is, is either ignorant of what a sports car really is or just too stubborn to admit they are wrong. A sporty sedan is not a sports car, no matter how hard some may try to convince you it is.
 
#55 ·
My thought is that it is probably more prestigious to drive something big than to drive a small sports car, so I am not surprised about the Vette. With that thought, driving a Z28 would sure turn some heads as it is big and intimidating. I bet Suburbans and Escalades would had done well.
 
#56 ·
While Chevy was in Europe it probably was a good deal. Now they have pulled out, it's probably dumb.

However, Chev is still getting world wide exposure due to the sponsorship. Two of my boys wear Man U jerseys with Chev on it and I'm in Australia. I would have preferred it said 'Holden' though.

GGMU.
 
#61 · (Edited)
There's a few other considerations as to why the 'stars' prefer their own cars.

Regardless of ManU endorsement deals, professional footballers have their own endorsements outside of the arena - they have to wear the strips with the club's logos but on the street, they are given, or paid to use, 'stuff' - and Mr Aston Martin would be none too pleased if an endorsee is snapped by paparazzi leaving a nighclub in a yellow vette with someone else's wife in it. They want the notoriety/product placement snaps in the Murdoch tabloid front pages themselves. The club can't mandate they have to drive the sponsor's product - that's restraint of trade and it's been tossed out many times in court.

Even the lesser players - they may not be paid to drive Range Rover, Jag or Bentley, but you can bet their car is on a car company's fleet and all it's running costs down to drunken-yob-at-3am-street-full-of-sideswiped-cars, bingle repairs and witness hush money is corporate-funded.

Why would they exchange that for a 'Chevvy' of similar general mien to a Vauxhall, when they'd be filling a big V8 with crap fuel economy in the likely traffic conditions, cramped and limited or no storage for your gearbags, a Marks and Sparks interior, and no fuel- or Co2-saving tech like stop-start, or small capacity turbo/diesel - with premium $7 a gallon fuel? And, you're up for horrendous congestion charges at the highest rate for a car with such a massive engine/poor Co2 rating virtually anywhere you'd want to drive in or around SW1. Like your physio, Harley St injury specialist or legal/PR people, fashionable personal training centre - or town pad, for instance. Out of your own pocket.


This is not an atypical scene anywhere within 50 miles of London on a normal business day - even in some of the larger regional cities like Birmingham - or Manchester!

In a London gridlock a Corvette is slower than a courier's pushbike. And commuting, if you're going to sit for extended periods in Knightsbridge going to a media event or charity launch, you'd want your stop-start, leather, spacious, office-on-wheels Rangie with full satellite comms functionality so you can do media and blogcast. Not a rumbling, quivering pianist extension sucking juice with few creature comforts apart from MyLink (whoopie!) that is attention-drawing and snug-fitting like a mankini; that says 'look at me' to adoring fans who can surround it and hem you in, is a paparazzo-magnet, scrapes on speedhumps, won't fit in a standard London burrough parking bay and struggle getting into a normal commercial carpark - not to mention fit down some laneways. You'd only drive it in once, for shuts and giggles. it'd pall really fast. It's like New York execs don't commute to Manhattan in their Ferraris.

A Corvette in London is like commuting on the Thames on a jetski. Might be fast (when you don't have to go through a lock) and thriliing - but what do you do with it once you've arrived, and where do you change into your Saville Row suit, and how do you keep it dry?
 
#64 ·
The deal may have been a little more successful if Chevrolet had sent a few (RHD) SS directly from Australia for the players to drive! :p:

But seriously, trying to get MU players to drive chav LHD Chevrolets is like giving Queen Elizabeth a Lada to drive! Ain't gunna happen.

Chevrolet 'brand' is damaged goods now after the Korean experiment, just like Holden's name is in Australia.
 
#66 ·
Which begs the question, why didn't Chevrolet put the RHD SS on sale in the UK in the first place - as well as having the steering in the right place the Australian and EU safety and emissions regulations are fairly similar so no real issues there.

Oh, and as an aside, HM Queen Elizabeth II, does still drive her favourite old "Series" Land Rover round the estate at Sandringham!
 
#71 · (Edited)
This is why GM needs to "transfer" the Chevy sponsorship into one for "GMC" (if possible), at least NFL players drive GMC products (GMC is official sponsor of the NFL) as do players in the NBA, MLB and the NHL.

The Canyon and next gen Acadia and Terrain should prove attractive in Denali trim (in RHD of course) and bet a few would like to drive the same Sierra Yukon and Yukon XL's that NFL players own.

Professional Athletes in the U.S. have shown a preference for GMC products and if GMC would get the expanded lineup (Envoy, Granite, H3, it's own "Evoque", "Discovery" "Range Rover Sport" and "Range Rover" competitors) it should already have, they would surely attract Professional Athletes in all global markets.

GMC's "Professional Grade" tagline works so why not add the products (LHD/RHD) to global markets and focus them on global Professionals?
 
#74 · (Edited)
Manchester United Stars Ignore Sponsored Corvettes, Prefer Range Rovers and Porsches
Autoevolution


[/I]
Manchester United Manager "BANNED" their players from driving Corvettes.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has banned the club's young stars from driving flashy sports cars from new sponsors Chevrolet.
The club recently signed a multi-million-pound deal with the American car giant, who will become the name on the club's shirts from the start of the 2014-15 season.
LINK

Manchester United or any other millionaire would not touch a Corvette in the RHD UK because they are LHD, no Brit touches cars with a steering wheel fitted in the passenger seat.
 
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