So apparently Cristiano Ronaldo would prefer we all drink water instead of Coca-Cola.
When the Portuguese superstar moved a couple of bottles of pop away as he sat at the podium for a press conference, the next day Coke's stock took a pretty big hit- four billion dollars' worth of value in a price drop. (Then again, let's not feel too badly for Coke; that was only 1.6% of their overall stock value, and the company was still worth $238 billion. I think they'll weather the storm.)
A lot of people said that Ronaldo shouldn't have done that. "Coca-Cola pays a lot of money to sponsor the tournament, and he's putting his own pay at risk..."
Funny thing, sponsorships; as it turns out, there was a time when Ronaldo was okay with Coke. (The internet is forever, kids.)
What Ronaldo's switch from Coke-endorsing athlete to moving it points out, though, is that whether or not he was entitled to move those bottles probably depends on a somewhat obscure part of the big-time sports industry: Image rights contracts.
Image rights contracts are exactly what they sound like, but they're a bit more complicated than many fans realize. For example, what do you notice about these Barcelona ads?
All three of these ads are partnerships between FC Barcelona and a sponsor- a watch company, a consumer electronics company, a betting company.
And all of the ads have the greatest player of all time in them, Leo Messi.
But there's something these ads have in common: each of them features a total of FIVE players from the then-current FC Barcelona squads.
Why five?
Because Messi had more than one contract with FC Barcelona. In addition to his playing contract, he also licensed the club to use his image- but only in certain instances and with conditions.
Basically, clubs demand (with pretty good justification) that they be able to use the image of their star players to promote the team and make money.
At the same time, players know they can make money- sometimes LOTS of money- by doing promotional appearances and work of their own.
So many of the big players wind up negotiating, separately, an image rights contract that specifies when and where the club is allowed to use the player's image. Even journeyman players wind up with some stuff about image rights; the standard MLS player agreement, for example, used to contain language that required the player to make up to three promotional appearances at the club's request throughout the season.
And in the case of a guy like Ronaldo or Messi, what they usually do is specify that they can't be used by themselves- the club can only use their image when there's multiple other players in the ad. Such as, for example, five total players.
What's all this got to do with Ronaldo moving the Coke?
Well, the real question about whether it was okay for him to do that isn't whether Coke paid for that product placement- of course they did, they paid a lot for it!
The real question is what Ronaldo's contract to play for the Portuguese national team says, and what UEFA's rules say about national team players' image rights, and so forth.
If Ronaldo isn't being compensated for that in at least some way...
and his contract doesn't specify that he must allow that type of product placement...
and whatever agreements exist between UEFA and the various federations don't say "players must not move products that are placed in front of them at the press conference"...
then he's under no obligation to let those bottles sit in front of him.
In fact his agent and commercial manager was probably very, very happy to see him pull that little stunt, because you can BET that those details will get worked out in the next contract.
And he'll get paid.
Now, you might think that image rights deals like this aren't something to worry about for MLS fans.
You'd probably be wrong. ESPN reported that part of the way that Inter Miami apparently routed Matuidi some money was through using a marketing side deal. Such deals are totally legal under MLS rules, but they're supposed to be reported to and reviewed by the league; you can't pay someone grossly huge amounts that they're not worth based on their media profile, because otherwise it just looks like you're doing it to get away with paying them Designated Player wages without actually having them take a DP slot.
So yes, even our little league sometimes has to deal with these kinds of image rights contracts.
