IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v30y2025i3p552-568.html

‘Unsponsoring Football’: Sign Value, Symbolic Exchange, and Simulacra in a Gambling-Related Marketing Campaign

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony May

    (Birmingham City University, UK)

Abstract

This article utilises Baudrillard’s concepts of sign value and symbolic exchange to examine the ‘Unsponsoring Football’ campaign which was designed by the marketing and creative agencies VCCP and Octagon, and carried out in conjunction with the bookmakers Paddy Power. Clubs were ‘unsponsored’ by Paddy Power, which paid for the right to not display its logo on football shirts. The campaign concept involved ‘spoof’ shirts which are simulations of the ‘real’ items. A four-step process through which the simulacra develop is outlined in the article. The campaign parodies UK government policy on gambling-related sponsorship, which has been criticised for its failure to regulate what is a globalised market. The 2023 White Paper ‘High Stakes: Gambling Reform for the Digital Age’ is notably similar to the parodic position taken in ‘Unsponsoring Football’. Removing some elements of sponsorship while retaining a wider relationship with the gambling industry means that the gamblification of the sport remains in place.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony May, 2025. "‘Unsponsoring Football’: Sign Value, Symbolic Exchange, and Simulacra in a Gambling-Related Marketing Campaign," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 30(3), pages 552-568, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:30:y:2025:i:3:p:552-568
    DOI: 10.1177/13607804241264684
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13607804241264684
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/13607804241264684?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cassidy, Rebecca & Ovenden, Niko, 2017. "Frequency, duration and medium of advertisements for gambling and other risky products in commercial and public service broadcasts of English Premier League football," SocArXiv f6bu8, Center for Open Science.
    2. Nerilee Hing & Matthew Rockloff & Matthew Browne, 2023. "A bad bet for sports fans: the case for ending the “gamblification” of sport," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(5), pages 788-812, October.
    3. repec:osf:socarx:f6bu8_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wenche Wang & Hua Gong, 2026. "The Impact of Legalized Sports Betting on Aggression," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 27(1), pages 116-146, January.
    2. Patrick Dunlop & Erica E. F. Ballantyne, 2021. "Effective and responsible marketing of online sports gambling to young adults in the UK," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(10), pages 1-22, October.
    3. Kitole, Felician Andrew & Kihwele, Jimmy Ezekiel & Kalimasi, Perpetua J. & Ojo, Temitope O. & Elhindi, Khalid M. & Kassem, Hazem S., 2025. "Exploring the influence of sports betting on academic performance among students in higher learning institutions in Tanzania," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Juliet Waruguru Mwai & Professor Hellen Mberia, 2022. "Television Betting Advertisements And The Gambling Behavior Of Undergraduate University Students Aged Between 18 And 25 Years In Kiambu County Kenya," International Journal of Communication and Public Relation, IPRJB, vol. 7(1), pages 20-44.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:30:y:2025:i:3:p:552-568. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.