Defender of the Biscuit?!?!

As a student of sport management and someone who plans to one day work in the field, I understand the importance of sports organizations selling sponsorships. It’s a huge revenue stream for them, and often a lifeline. We see a ton of it in professional sports, but sponsorships are creeping into college sports more and more. I first started noticing it in “big time” college programs, and mostly on television broadcasts—bowl game titles, logos projected onto a court/field, halftime shows sponsored by whoever, etc. This season, though, The Citadel athletic department must be trying to finance half the stadium renovation with sponsorships, and I think it’s a little out of control.

I think getting sponsors for promotions is great. Jones Ford has sponsored a couple of promotions at Citadel football games this season, but is it really necessary for every Citadel first down to be announced as a “Jones Ford First Down”? Or for every timeout to be “brought to you by CSS Copy Services”? (This gets especially annoying when teams start burning timeouts back-to-back!) The Citadel has even sold the red zone, so that every time the Bulldogs progress into the red zone, the announcers uses some clever line to recognize whoever wrote the check, not the players who actually got the ball there.

What really gets me is sponsors for the player of the game awards. For example, the defensive player of the game award is sponsored by Bojangles and for whatever reason is named the Defender of the Biscuit award (which coincidentally went to our class’s own Kevin McCaskill this week... Congrats, Kevin!). But Defender of the Biscuit? Come on, at that point it’s not even about the player anymore. It’s clearly more about Bojangles than the player, and that’s a shame. Why can’t it be just the Bojangles Defensive Player of the Game? There are ways to sell sponsorships and not totally sell your team out. Bottom line... I say if you need sponsors to fund your program, put their logo on the scoreboard, in the program, or even on the field if you need to. Let them sponsor the gameday promotion and recognize them for that. But until the Jones Ford staff is ready to go on the field and get their “Jones Ford First Down” themselves, let’s leave the action on the field alone and let the players be recognized for what they’re doing.

By the way, The Citadel and Furman both won this weekend, which I fully expected them to do (Western Carolina won ONE game last season, and Chattanooga hasn’t beaten Furman since Terrell Owens played for them!). The Bulldogs took out Western Carolina 34-14, and receiver Andre Roberts set a new school record for career receptions along the way. Meanwhile in Greenville, the Paladins put a 35-10 hurting on UT-Chattanooga, thanks in part to a spectacular game from the tight ends. On Saturday, The Citadel will travel to Appalachian State, and the Paladins will be on the road at Elon. Both should be good games, but since I will be traveling for the following 3 weekends, I won’t be going anywhere this weekend. Good luck to all my boys!