For as long as we can all remember, mascots have been part-and-parcel of a sporting match day experience.
Regardless of whether they play a big or small role in the club’s wider thinking, they are still a handy commodity used by clubs to market themselves at a younger audience.
However, there are always cases when clubs get it wrong.
Picking the wrong mascot leads to a multitude of issues, not least the PR backlash that comes with choosing the wrong character. Mascots should be marketable, but in many instances that is simply not the case. Here’s a selection of some of the worst mascots of recent years.
Kingsley (Partick Thistle)
Scottish Championship side Partick Thistle replaced former mascot Jaggy MacBee with Kingsley [pictured above]. Their new mascot was designed by David Shrigley, a Turner Prize-nominated artist and Thistle fan, but failed to win the approval of both supporters and the wider public. Drawing reference to various Simpsons characters on social media, Kingsley proved to a major own-goal when it came to the response from the general public.
Boiler Man (West Bromwich Albion)
This time coming from the English football pyramid, Championship club West Brom partnered up with Ideal Boilers back in May. As part of the deal, a new mascot was introduced to the Hawthorns faithful, and as can be expected, it brought about a mixed response. Although their main mascot remained Baggie Bird, the headlines were all taken by their supporting act. With the main mascot lost in the background, surely this would do nothing to boost ticket sales or generate the right kind of publicity?
Hammerhead (West Ham United)
West Ham’s new mascot, Hammerhead, was arguably created with the best intentions but simply isn’t the kind of thing that can be marketable to a younger audience. The mascot was unveiled in 2011 and does have some historical meaning behind him, but with such an unappealing visual appearance, is this really what clubs need to interact with the younger audience?
King Cake Baby (New Orleans Pelicans)
One of two mascots for American basketball side New Orleans Pelicans, King Cake Baby hit the headlines for the wrong reasons after being named the world’s scariest mascot by USA Today. This mascot epitomises exactly what shouldn’t be done when it comes to choosing a character to represent the club. In contrast to fellow mascot Pierre the Pelican, King Cake Baby has an appearance that is terrifying not only for children, but adults too! Albeit done for sponsorship reasons, surely there must be other ways of advertising the brand…
Stanford Tree (Stanford University)
First appearing in 1975, the Stanford Tree has been the unofficial mascot of the Stanford University sports teams for many a year. Despite appearing harmless, the Tree has suffered a spate of misdemeanours in the last 10-15 years, including being drunk and disorderly during a 2006 men’s college basketball game, before an ‘on-court altercation’ with an official during a women’s basketball tournament 12 months later. When mascots hit the headlines for the wrong reasons, they certainly aren’t going to be a tool for boosting ticket sales.
