Wonkette
Evil insurance cashburner AIG loves to take $150 billion (so far!) of your money to pay off its toxic debts, such as executive pay packages, luxurious corporate junkets and, now, sports team jerseys!
See, your associate editor just bought this fun new soccer video game and loves to play as England’s Manchester United, because (a) they have so many good players and (b) printed on their jerseys are the huge letters “AIG,” which is just so comical and embarrassing — especially since it was an English unit of AIG that lost all of the company’s money by selling credit-default swaps like hotcakes!
Well, AIG is spending $125 million to renew on that sponsorship. Because if AIG’s name appears on the soccer players’ jerseys, then suddenly people will want to invest in or buy services from that terrible, immoral global chop-shop.
Congress? HELLO? CONGRESS? Oversight! On the AIG! They’re doing weeeeeeeeird stuff! Watch them!
Bailed-out companies AIG, Citibank have no plans to cancel expensive sports sponsorships. [Think Progress]
And since the Russkies essentially own the English Premier League, perhaps this is all part of the intricate Communist Hedge Fund conspiracy?
I’ll bring the torches if some of y’all bring the pitchforks.
I can’t wait for Manchester United’s exhibition game at Enron Field.
Is it just me, or does anyone else just want to kick the CEO of AIG in the nuts right now. Possibly with steel toed boots on.
Always Investing in Garbage.
Assinine Insolvent Greedheads.
Achingly Inappropriate Gluttony.
If I had known we got kool t-shirts, I would have been way more supportive of the AIG bail-out!
Yeah — we all own a bit of Cristiano Ronaldo now.
Hank Paulson: Loyal Servant of the Ruling Classes
I think that Citi and the Mets go together like love and marriage. Both have lousy management, overpaid bums and bullpens that collapse in the heat of a crisis or pennant race.
…it was an English unit of AIG that lost all of the company’s money…
This makes me feel a tad better. Before, I was blaming my poverty on evil Americans, now I can spread the blame to England. Thanks a lot, wankers!
Ted Perino:
“The government invested my money into AIG and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt”
Please tell me you bought the new Pro Evolution/Winning Eleven, and not FIFA.
Pro Evolution Soccer is fucking video crack.
this is why I root for Liverpool.
FreshCliches: Ooh, so sorry, it’s now Minute Maid Park. In Houston, we don’t want the Enron tag on anything.
ABU! ABU! Those AIG creepos should be forced to sponsor Swinden Town, or Dorking FC, or Motherwell, or Effing Grimsby!
But Christiano Ronaldo is so hot. Doesn’t that make it all ok?
randomsausage:
Yeah, but he comes with some potatohead-looking Rooney fellow.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: OK I was a Pro Evolution guy OBVS until this year when Fifa finally made dramatic changes to the gameplay. Seriously. This is on the Internet.
At least AIG get to be associated with a succesful team (Played 13, 25pts and also in the Champions League) - the British Government, for much the same reason, sponsor Newcastle United (Played 14, 14pts, generally suck).
Congress should force Man U to wear shirts with “USA! A-OK!” emblazened on the front. Similarly, Newcastle could wear shirts that say “Looks like rain again” on the front.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: FIFA is absolute majesty. I challenge you to a dual, sir.
What the fuck is Soccer? This is America, right? What the hell…..?
They will never be taken seriously on Wall Street until they invest in penis extenders.
Jim Newell:
Really? Damn. I’d long given up on Fifa. But if the internet says it…
(Actually, I hear the REAL hardcore 100% pure video crack is Football Manager… but I’m afraid to nerd it up quite that much.)
AIG’s executive team (past and present) should be made to wear the Man U jerseys in the middle of Old Trafford while selected shareholders and taxpayers give them the Royal Navy treatment — rum, sodomy and the lash. Without the rum.
Communists! Let the free market work! Jerseys are the most efficient investment right now. Buy buy buy!
BillyClubb: Um, my point exactly.
Besides, Cecil Cooper is venerated up here where your “neutral site” no-hitter was played.
SayItWithWookies:
Avarice Is Great!
We’re all Stretford Enders now
This would all be soooooo funny if it wasn’t our money, ha ha ha!
What else would an Executive wear in the Skybox at AIG BailoutDome Arena?
$125 million on t-shirts or $half mil on rub-n-tug.
well, I guess with the t-shirts you at least have something to show for it….
Anyvone Ixcipt George.
Weird, Sick, Twisted,
Weird, Sick, Twisted,
Weird, Sick, Twisted,
Eeeeevil Stuff! And I want in!
Apparently the comments section does not approve of my close homer tag.
That’s a two-year-old jersey. The current one doesn’t have the white accents around the neckline and beneath the club badge. Also, Ronaldo is a wanker.
FreshCliches: Enron Park is now Minute Maid Park, for what it’s worth. AIG is in the pocket of Big Juice?
hey, silly people, the story on ABC notes only that they are not canceling their current shirt sponsorship of Manchester United. The deal was worth $125m over 4 years with much of that front loaded. They are currently 2 1/2 years into it and only have about $10-15m left to pay for next years sponsorship - this will come due sometime next summer I believe
Whether they renew the deal is a whole different question.
It is my understanding that the bailout money AIG received has not, up to this point, being used toward their sponsorship of Manchester United.
Manchester United are also the biggest sports brand in the world.
Jim Newell: shortsshortsshorts: Botswana Meat Commission FC: Agreed. FIFA is excellent this year.
I just came here to say CTID
Also, Pro Evo > Fifa
Is there that much of a market for people who don’t read newspapers or watch the news and then go out and invest in companies and make financial decisions based on the shirt logo Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo are wearing? Is it more than $125 million?
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
BillyClubb: England is just one giant trailer park. Trust me, I’m an Okie therefore formally acquainted with white trailer now council house trash. Wankers the lot of them.
I saw someone walking through my suburban
Panera’s in one of these shirts Saturday before
last. why would you appear in public wearing
this bulls-eye?
Futbol? Y’all talkin’ ’bout some futbol?
allllllllright, WTF is this shit?
Fuck Man Utd.
Props to the Crew, btw, they’re a class act, they deserved it, and I didn’t even feel so bad that they beat the Fire in the semis.
If I had to guess Wayne Rooney would be a Palin supporter. It also looks like his species has evolved only within in the last 6,000 years - I still see that Neanderthal profile of his.
Then again, he plays great football and probably can buy AIG on a week’s salary. Wasn’t like that back in the Everton days.
To those of you thinking of investing in these shirts, its going to be a dead market for you - you should short. Once the AIG logo is replaced, the AIG logoed shirts can only be found for a fiver on the floor at Lillywhites.
OkieHookerinEngland: I beg to differ, England is not one giant trailer park. The council flats I know are more like Dhaka or Lahore.
Neon Trotsky: Actually Man U is owned by a grilly old American chappie, Malcom Glazer. So this is an Asset the Russians don’t have yet. However, we can use it as a barganing chip when Putin rears his ugly head in Alaska.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/4999748.stm
http://unprofessionalfoul.blogspot.com/2008/09/only-slightly-less-cool-than-west-hams.html
Does anyone here not yet understand that AIG is run by really stupid business people? Their consistent dumb decisions shows that either they don’t get it or they don’t care. Who says AIG has to exist at all? We want our money back!!
Borat: I obviously need correction. Firmly and repeatedly.
Libtard hippie socialists,sports sponsorships are important in business:
1. The international CEO Courvoisier drinking and passing-out competition.
2. North American Ivy League bridge and firing servants tournament.
3. Santa Barbara croquet face-off.
4. Shaker Heights polo and no unemployment compensation championship.
5. Miami yachting-over-Haitian-immigrants challenge.
6. “Turning-in Dusky MexHondurans” Phoenix Country Club trials.
7. Fizzbin.
Apart from that, Tony Fratto rhymes with Gitmo.
TeddyS: Absolutely. You’ve got to wonder just how long the U.S. government can keep on coming up with a huge bailout cheque every time some appallingly managed company sends their latest-in-a-long-line of incompetent douchebag CEO’s flying off to D.C. on the corporate jet in a two thousand dollar suit, with a Gucci briefcase in one hand and a begging bowl in the other.
I don’t want to get all James Howard Kunstler here, but the wave of inflation that will be generated by printing all this money is likely to be massive, and hard to bring under control.
Aren’t these the same overpaid stuffed shirts who are always lecturing us pissants on how the Free Market must be free to operate? I couldn’t agree more.
Rule 1> Badly run companies FAIL.
Rule 2> It’s not the taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for your incompetence.
Rule 3> So fook off!
Ha. I just bought a Chinese knockoff of this jersey in Egypt for 7USD the other day. That’s capitalism for you!
OK!
Count us in,
we need four(4) of those bad boys for our styling & profiling ~