Six Nations sponsors stuck in a web of hypocrisy

As we prepare to sit down to enjoy the third round of the Six Nations, let’s give thanks to the generous sponsors, The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Since 2003 they have been piling money into rugby and, with appropriately little fanfare, they signed up for another four years of Six Nations sponsorship recently, reportedly worth £43 million. To put that in perspective, the four years sponsorship 2010-2013 is said to have cost them £26 million, though we should be cautious when talking about banks and large sums of money.

If the figures are accurate, that's a 65% hike. Little wonder the Six Nations Council didn't complain.

"The global profile of the Championship means that it provides a cost effective way to promote RBS and engage with our customers, clients and staff. It also gives us a unique opportunity to give back to these groups," says RBS.

Does that mean that RBS big cheeses invite a few hundred guests to every match for sumptuous hospitality events, with former players making witty speeches and everybody necking all the free booze they can grab?

What it plainly is not is an “opportunity to give back” to the people who involuntarily kept RBS afloat when appalling mismanagement and bad business practice would otherwise have sent it to the wall. RBS is 80% owned by a government mired in debt. Taxpayers are shelling out for a rotten organisation to shower largesse on the game of rugby and relatively few people around it.

£43 million is a piffling amount in the context of the £390 million RBS was fined for its part in alleged fixing the Libor rate from 2005-2010. And it's not much in terms of the grotesque bonuses the bank has paid its pinstriped pirates. But those are not flattering yardsticks by which to measure the bank's generosity

Those who seek to defend RBS say that the bank, now more than ever, needs to heighten its profile, especially with the ABC1 demographic that constitutes much of the rugby world. They are, after all, the people that form the core of the banking franchise; from deposits to mortgages, loans to insurance, pensions to, er, whatever else they do.

Heighten its profile, eh? As if Fred Goodwin and the Libor fixing allegations hadn't done that rather too well already. No, the way forward for RBS is to party on, while proudly parading its predicament to a television audience in more than 160 countries.

Quite what RBS, or any other bank, would make of its customers living the high life while defaulting on their mortgage payments, is not hard to guess. It seems odd that the bank considers such a wanton display of hypocrisy as meeting its "very specific business objectives". Anybody, from RBS or not, care to guess at what those objectives are?

So this may be a little deeper than most topics on here but do you agree with the journalist that penned this? Should a business so in debt and that's already blown away so much of the tax payers money be splashing out on what could be thought of as a luxury?

Nice to know that some of my taxes go to a worthy cause.

Companies don't sponsor sporting events out of "generosity". They do it because they believe the publicity will bring them greater returns in the long run. It's no different from paying for any other kind of advertising. It's certainly not throwing money away like this journalist seems to be suggesting. Although if they are spending too much on corporate hospitality that might be another matter.

Exactly maes. I would like to think that my personal contribution paid for the prawn skewers for the season.

The counter argument of course is that the bank wants to return to profitability and the best way to do that is to attract new business via client entertainment. In theory then the profitable business can be sold out, making a profit for the HMRC (lets not kid ourselves that he profits will come back to us!) Of course anything government run tends to be a balls up, so that seems unlikely...

By the writing style i presume you took that from The Independant or The Guardian? I could almost hear the journo frothing over his copy of K Marx.

Personally, i'm much more skeptical. If it wasn't this den of thieves, it would be another den of thieves. There are no good choices here, they're all as bent as each other. Then again, unless the 6N was propped by some kind of pure strain of gestalt collective then i think this journo would take exception.

I don't have a problem with RBS sponsoring the Six Nations. They are certainly not doing it for the nice lunches for their execs and clients. Nor are they doing it as a form of charity. They are doing it because they believe placing the RBS name on the Six Nations continues to keep the profile of RBS high which drives business. It is a business investment, pure and simple. A good one for us.

They're just a bunch of bankers - what else would you expect, dividends back to us customers

maestegmafia wrote:Nice to know that some of my taxes go to a worthy cause.

I'm glad your taxes are financing my enjoyment too.

Don't RBS sponsor Williams in F1 too?

VictorU3 wrote:Don't RBS sponsor Williams in F1 too?

No, withdrew all F1 sponsorship few years back. It was used for wooing Corporate clients rather than your average fan.

Just a reminder of our Bankers

Royal Bank of Scotland has fuelled more fury over bonuses as it revealed a £607 million haul for workers in spite of recent scandals and another £5.2 billion in losses.

The part-nationalised lender has now racked up five years of losses since being bailed out by the taxpayer, but insisted the core bank would return to financial health next year, paving the way for the Government to start offloading its 81% stake.

Chief executive Stephen Hester - who has already waived his bonus for 2012 - defended its multimillion-pound bonus pot, which includes £215 million for investment bankers, saying its staff were "badly needed" to help turn the bank around.

That's their job Stephen that's what you pay them to do - try a job satisfaction appraisal instead of millions of our dosh after a year

Frak hell, we're lucky at my work if we get a box of biscuits and a xmas bash! (which we chip in for)

Box of biscuits!!! Fecking Luxury

I don't really care how it's financed, all the money going into Welsh rugby is a good thing, I changed from British gas to Swalec simply because Swalec sponsor Welsh rugby, I'm not eve sure which is cheaper, and neither do I really care.