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Team GB

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For the team that uses the brand, see Great Britain at the Olympics.

Team GB
Team GB branding from 2012
Product typeNational sporting branding, associated merchandising
OwnerBritish Olympic Association
CountryUnited Kingdom
IntroducedSeptember 1999
Registered as a trademark inUnited Kingdom
Websitewww.teamgb.com

Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their British Olympic team. The brand was developed after the nation's poor performance in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and is now a trademark of the BOA. It is meant to unify the team as one body, irrespective of each member athlete's particular sport. Officially, the team is the "Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team",[1] although athletes from Northern Ireland may opt to compete under the auspices of the Olympic Federation of Ireland instead.

History

The British Olympic Association's director of marketing, Marzena Bogdanowicz, felt that the official and abbreviated names of the Great Britain Olympic team were a mouthful. She first thought of the 'Team GB' concept in 1996 or 1997, and said: "I went to the games in 1996 and the logo at the time was just the lion and the rings, but we weren't strong enough as a brand to just be a lion and the rings. So coming back I wanted to find something that was less of a mouthful, and also had that team feel. We looked at the options and came up with Team GB".[2]

The name was trademarked in September 1999 at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO).[3]

Branding strategy

The BOA state that there "is only one Olympic team from Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Team GB. There is not an Olympic swimming team or Olympic rowing team. The individual sports join to become Team GB, the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team."[4]

The Team GB brand was used as part of a licensing and merchandising strategy following the BOA's athletes success at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.[5] Bogdanowicz stated that the BOA wanted to "cement the Team GB brand in the minds of the British public".[6]

Calls for renaming

The team is officially known as the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team,[4] and the use of Team GB as the BOA's branding is seen as inadequate by some, as it suggests the team is drawn from Great Britain alone, which only consists of England, Scotland and Wales, while omitting the rest of the territories where BOA athletes are eligible for selection, most notably Northern Ireland, as well as the Crown dependencies (Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey), and those British Overseas Territories (BOT) that are not represented by their own National Olympic Committee.

In June 2009, Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Sports Minister Gregory Campbell suggested that the name should be changed as the abbreviated form was not inclusive enough as it "excludes, and indeed alienates, the people of Northern Ireland".[7] Campbell's successor, Nelson McCausland, also suggested that an alternative name be found.[8]

A significant complication is that the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), established in 1920 while Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, claims to represent the whole island of Ireland and not merely the Republic. The OCI and the BOA have an agreement under which Northern Ireland sportspeople may choose to compete for either team.[9]

The BOA has rejected calls for the name to be changed to Team UK, arguing that neither Team GB nor Team UK are entirely accurate, given that neither term covers all the members of its association, and that Team GB is an "effective trading name that fitted best with the Olympic identification of GBR".[10]

Calls for nation representation

Wales

See: Campaign for a Wales Olympic Team

There have multiple calls for Wales to be represented as its own constituent nation at the Olympics.[11][12]

Scotland

See: Campaign for a Scottish Olympic Team

There have also been multiple calls for Scotland to be represented as its own constituent nation at the Olympics.[13][14][15]

Northern Ireland

See: Campaign for a Northern Irish Olympic Team

There have also been multiple calls for Northern Ireland to be represented as its own constituent nation at the Olympics.

Mascot

The mascot of the team is a lion named Pride.

Reception

The Team GB branding has been credited with creating a 'team feel', and direct comparisons were made of the performance at the 1996 Olympic Games in which the BOA's representatives won one gold medal, and the 2000 games where Great Britain and Northern Ireland performed under the Team GB name and returned with eleven gold medals.[2]

Comedian and columnist David Mitchell described the BOA's decision to create a nickname and rebrand their representative team as "capitalism's final victory" and "pathetic", going on to say that anyone who thought rebranding the Olympic squad has helped win more medals "are either morons or they think our athletes are".[16] Scottish columnist Gerry Hassan commented that "Team GB represents something which is a fiction and an illusion which doesn't correspond with any political form".[17]

Victory parade

Main article: Our Greatest Team Parade

A celebratory parade took place on 10 September 2012, commemorating the Olympic and Paralympic Games.[18][19]

'Our Greatest Team' was the slogan used by the BOA for the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

References

  1. ^ "Who, What, Why: Why is it Team GB, not Team UK?". BBC News. 14 August 2016.
  2. ^ a b Burton, Simon (19 August 2008). "Baffled by Beijing". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  3. ^ "team GB trademark details". Intellectual Property Office. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  4. ^ a b "FAQ – What is Team GB?". www.TeamGB.com. British Olympic Association. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  5. ^ Kleinman, Mark (19 October 2000). "BOA to launch Team GB in high street". PR Week. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  6. ^ "BOA to launch Team GB in high street". www.campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  7. ^ "Don't call it Team GB, says Gregory Campbell". Belfast Telegraph. 19 June 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  8. ^ McGarrigle, Heather (10 March 2011). "No place for 'NI', says Olympic Team GB". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  9. ^ HL Deb 21 October 2004 vol 665 c99WA Hansard
  10. ^ "Minister urges BOA to change 'erroneous Team GB name'". www.BBC.co.uk. BBC News. 10 March 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  11. ^ "Plaid Cymru deputy leader calls for Wales to compete in its own right at next Olympics". Nation.Cymru. 9 August 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
  12. ^ "Chapter 12". YesCymru. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
  13. ^ "SNP repeats Olympic football call". 11 November 2005. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  14. ^ "PollResults". 27 August 2013. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  15. ^ "Land of Hope and Glory?". The Glasgow Guardian. 29 September 2008. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  16. ^ Mitchell, David (23 August 2008). "Olympics: Why 'Team GB' is capitalism's final victory". The Guardian. London.
  17. ^ "Gerry Hassan: Olympics to kick off with national confusion". The Scotsman. 21 April 2012. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  18. ^ Gibson, Owen (28 August 2012). "Our Greatest Team: Olympians and Paralympians to parade in London". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
  19. ^ "Our Greatest Team – athletes parade route details confirmed". Greater London Authority. 27 August 2012. Archived from the original on 30 August 2012. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
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