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Recent publicity about intolerance in sports is very annoying, but not new. What role does Marketing the Rainbow play in the sports world?

Alfred Verhoeven
November 3, 2022

Sports (marketing) involves a lot of money. In addition, it offers a stage for publicity and visibility. These are elements that have not escaped the rainbow community.

KNVB (Royal Dutch Football Association)

The recent dramas around Coming Out Day, with the high/low point being the behavior of team captains Kökcü and El Yaakoubi “because of religion” to refuse to wear the OneLove band, show that there is still room for improvement in top sport.

First of all, Kökcü et al. misinterpreted the meaning of that band: although it seems to be the LGBT rainbow, the colors of the OneLove logo symbolize race and origin (red/black/green) and all gender identities and sexual orientations (pink/yellow/blue). Thus – on account of religion – a selfish charge was given to the action and they cut themselves in the fingers – because the race and descent aspect was thereby also negated.

The KNVB wanted to make a statement against all forms of discrimination with the OneLove campaign, but instead of taking action against the obstinate refusers, they decided not to hold a OneLove follow up campaign at all in the Premier League for the time being – without consulting their own anti-discrimination experts. The captains were lavished praise on the socials by the fans: they are of course about football and heroism, not about inclusion and anti-discrimination (witness the unsavory chants that still occur) and certainly not about “freedom of religion” which served as an excuse. And with that, the entire bottom falls from the perhaps well-intentioned plan of the KNVB.

NB: I wonder if the gentlemen also kneel towards Mecca 5 times a day, or refuse to touch a pigskin football, but I really don’t care. Their “opinion” shows selective discrimination. And the same goes for other religions. I am not going to explain Leviticus completely, but the Xristian activists deliberately choose just a single prohibition from that Bible book (gays may not be gays) while they cheerfully wear clothes made of two different fabrics, and really do not kill their neighbor if they work on the Sabbath. Discrimination is a choice – also in sport.

How things will go in Qatar has only indirectly to do with the rainbows, but there are so many human rights violations that it is a shame that the entire football world happily travels to the oil state. I can dismiss my “not watching” as a boycott, but I just don’t give a damn about football.

Out in top sport

Where brands such as Nike and adidas have been paying full attention to the rainbow community since 1995 (and doing so in an original and respectful manner), it remains front page news when a top athlete comes out. This almost always happens after ‘retirement’: Martina and Billie-Jean were in the first group (they were actually being outed), as well as colleague Renée Richards, who was one of the first transgender athletes. Martina did a lot in advertising (Amex, Subaru) and Billie-Jean became a (disputed) board member of Philip Morris as a thank you for the indispensable role the company had played in making women’s tennis great.

Diver Greg Louganis was up in the second round, with his confession that he had HIV getting extra attention due to his famous but bloody accident in 1988. He advertised Mercantile Bank Commercial and some local stores, but after coming out he no longer had commercial roles.

Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner made it to the press with “Call me Caitlyn” only 4 decades after her sports career – and she now appears in campaigns for the likes of H&M. In 2014, skier Gus Kenworthy won the silver medal at the Sochi Olympics. Just a year later, the freestyle skier made headlines again when he came out. He’s featured in campaigns for H&M, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Cann, Head & Shoulders and Samsung – so it hasn’t done him any harm. Times have really changed!

Last year, Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to come out. In 2014 Michael Sam did that in an interview with ESPN that made history – but that was before he played in the NFL. He was briefly drafted by the St. Louis Rams but was fired shortly after and in 2015 he announced that he was leaving the sport for good. So his scoop didn’t go so well.

There aren’t many overtly non-straight players in football: Josh Cavallo, who plays for the Adelaide United team in Australia, became the first active professional footballer to come out last year, causing a stir. In the year that followed, footballers Blackpool’s Jake Daniels and Scottish Zander Murray did the same, as did referees Craig Napier and Lloyd Wilson. There was already less noise. Adelaide United recently posted a message on the team’s account that read: “One year on, we are very proud of you.” Good development.

Surprisingly, there are quite a few gay players in the manliest of the men’s sports, rugby. Gareth Thomas came out in December 2009: the following year he was voted the most influential gay person in the UK by The Independent on Sunday Pink List and received Stonewall’s Hero of the Year award. His coming out was followed by Sam Stanley, Nigel Owens and Craig Maxwell-Keys.

In figure skating there are several openly gay participants: this sport, just like ballroom dancing, is seen as somewhat flamboyant and gay. That doesn’t stop commerce from hiring them: Adam Rippon (very clumsy for Nivea) and Johnny Weir (fabulously for Bluefly, Google Home) are household names here.

It doesn’t seem to be an issue in women’s football: several women are openly non-straight in both the Dutch and American teams. Megan Rapinoe is even used as a figurehead by many brands, such as Nike, Shiseido and Smirnoff.

Then there are sporting events for the LGBT community. Maybe you say: OK, sure, it’s fun, whatever, but this is taking place on an unprecedented scale, which also involves a lot of commercial interests.

Gay Games

You would think that the Olympic Games are the largest sporting event in the world, but the Gay Games are considerably larger in terms of number of participants. Wikipedia describes it as “the world’s largest sports and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians and others”, as it has since grown into an event with much more than ‘just’ sport. Everyone is also welcome to participate, although the percentage of straight athletes is limited.

How it started

In 1980, Dr. Tom Waddell, a 1968 Olympic decathlete, joined a group of San Francisco residents in the event now known as the Gay Games. Tom dreamed of a sporting event based on the philosophy that “personal best should be the number one goal in any athletic endeavor”.

The Gay Games are open to everyone: young or old, experienced or beginner, gay or straight. The objectives are to promote the spirit of inclusion and participation as well as the pursuit of personal growth in a sporting event. The fact that ‘everyone’ is allowed to participate does not mean that it has become a kind of circus show for amateur athletes: world records (!) are indeed being achieved.

Olympic problems

The original name was Gay Olympic Games, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) filed a lawsuit against the use of that name because the USOC has exclusive rights to the word Olympic in the United States. The Games were subsequently renamed Gay Games. Notably, there are other sporting events bearing the name “Olympics” (for example, the Nebraska Rat Olympics and the Police Olympics), which the USOC had no objection to. You may wonder why the combination with ‘Gay’ did lead to protests… another reason why all this is necessary because the rats in Nebraska get less resistance.

The “Gaymes” have many similarities to the Olympics, including the 4-year frequency, and the flame lit at the opening ceremony. In the photo on the left you can see Dr. Waddell with the original poster, where the word “Olympics” has been taped over. The poster on the right shows the same ‘development’.

The statistics

Here are some numbers as tot he participating athletes:

The first two Gay Games were hosted in San Francisco in 1982 and 1986. Subsequently, they were held in Vancouver, New York, Amsterdam, Sydney, Chicago, Cologne, Cleveland and Paris. Due to circumstances, this year’s Games have been moved to 2023 and will be held in the striking combination of Hong Kong and Guadalajara. In 2026 it will be Valencia’s turn.

The number of participating athletes grew from 1,350 athletes from 12 countries competing in 17 sports to more than 10,000 participants in Cologne and 9,000 in Cleveland, after reaching a peak of 14,715 in Amsterdam in 1998.

In 1994 it raised an estimated $300 million for the city of New York, 125 million Dutch guilders ($55 million) in Amsterdam in 1998 and Gay Games VI in 2002 generated approximately AUD 100 million ($60 million) for Sydney and Australia.

Note: at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, only ten athletes were openly gay (m/f), by the 2012 London Olympics this number had risen to 23. The Sochi Winter Olympics saw only 7 openly gay participants, due to the newly introduced Russian anti-LGBT legislation. But in Tokyo there were more LGBT athletes than in all previous Summer Olympics combined: at least 186! That was more than 3 times as much as five years before in Rio.

Personal experience

I personally attended the event in Amsterdam, Sydney and Cologne and can honestly say that the week of August 1998 in Amsterdam was probably the most ‘magical’ of my life. For once ‘we’ were a majority: not just 200,000 LGBT visitors in a city like Amsterdam (with only 800,000 inhabitants) made a big impression, but every resident, shopkeeper, tram driver and police officer seemed to wear a pink ribbon, boa, pin or rainbow insignia.

The opening ceremony in the Amsterdam Arena with more than 40,000 guests generated so much positive energy that it probably must have been visible from the moon. The Gay Games V was a huge cultural and athletic (albeit not so much a financial) success, and an excellent example of integration, respect, and tolerance.

Incidentally, in the run-up to the Amsterdam Games, KLM was the lifesaver by acting as the main sponsor and continuing to do so consistently, despite increasing costs and contributions.

The Gay Games: But WHY?

I really can’t count how many times I’ve seen or heard the question, “You all want to integrate so much, so why do you need to organize a separate gay event if you need to?”. Well, first of all, we are not so much striving for “integration” as for equal rights, which are two different things. Secondly, everyone is welcome to participate in the Gay Games, including straights.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, there is nothing wrong with hosting or participating in an event that is fun, sporty, diverse, cultural, and inclusive.

This photo shows German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Vice-Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011 (the first openly gay person to hold such a position), and his partner Michael Mronz at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Cologne Games.

Sports to unite

The research “Out for Sport: The Facts” by the Equality Network shows how LGBT people think about sport and the reactions they see or get there.

The Gay Games have demonstrated that it meets a need in the LGBT world, and that sport and competition can be successfully used to unite and entertain, as well as promote charities and build the community. A number of ‘spin-offs’ are now organized every year and thousands of gay sports teams have been founded all over the world. Often these are recreational and only compete with each other in low profile (international) events, but sometimes they rise to another level.

After all the turmoil with the Russian Winter Olympics, many messages of support for the LGBT community and participants were released, mainly by (N)GOs, such as the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion. But one supplier had a perfect answer. XXL All Sports United, a Norwegian sportswear retailer, released a commercial showing her support for LGBT people during the 2014 Winter Games. A video with a nice twist. The reward is “Whatever team you play for” – an excellent pun and a powerful message. Several Norwegian athletes also appeared in the clip.

Other sporting events

The EuroGames, officially called the European Gay and Lesbian Multi-Sports Championships, is also a sports-for-all event, open to everyone regardless of gender, age, sexual identity or physical ability. The event was founded in the Netherlands in 1992 and is now a tournament with more than 5,000 participants, which is organized every 2 or 3 years in a European city.

The annual Euro Gay Cup (sailing) started in 2001 and has taken place in Vinkeveen, Paris, Berlin, Cowes and Lemmer. Entrants have registered from the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, USA and Australia.

More regional initiatives include Brussels Games, QueergamesBern, Sin City Shootout Las Vegas, IGLFA Euro Cup Dublin (football) and many others, including a number of gay ski weeks around the world (Europe, N-America, Australasia).

Conclusion

As for so many activities, LGBT people organize plenty of sporting events for the community (& friends). Sponsorship has been less of a problem in recent years than it was in the beginning.

But in the regular sports world, the journey is still sad Representation -> visibility -> normalization -> tolerance -> acceptance -> respect. We are still in the first steps, and as long as refusal behavior in Union-led campaigns slides into jeering and the cancellation of follow-up projects instead of improvement actions, we are in a vicious circle: few dare to come out, the invisibility of LGBT people in (top) sport remains, others also slow down, and ensures that the audience continues to speak negatively about ‘those little homo’s’ (I use a euphemism here).

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow. He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about Why you need a supplier diversity program, BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC), From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C), The Men from Atlantis, The other kind of cruising, Booking.com, Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.