Sapped by sportswashing? Get your nominations in for the Bad Sport Awards 2024
The Badvertising campaign is back with the third edition of the Bad Sport Awards 2024 and nominations are now open.
Almost everywhere you look in sport, you’ll see high-carbon sponsorship and glitzy green promises made by big polluters. Whether its sport stadia donning the name of the world’s biggest fossil fuel firm or half marathons sponsored by SUV manufactures and airlines, sport continues to be used as a giant billboard for companies and states that are driving climate chaos.
By calling out the most egregious examples of sportswashing and greenwash from across global sport, the awards aim to send a clear message that enough is enough. The beauty, joy and community of sport should not be used to improve the images of those that are undermining its future. To protect the sports we love, and the places we play them, we must kick polluters out.
For this year’s awards, there are the following categories:
The Bad Sport of the Year Award: the overall winner for the most egregious examples of greenwash and sportswash.
The ‘Thin Ice’ Award (in collaboration with Save Our Snow): the most self-defeating high-carbon sponsorship deal or commercial partnership in snow sports.
The ‘Running on Fumes’ Award (in collaboration with The Green Runners): the most outrageous examples of sportswash or greenwashing in running, across elite running events to trail and ultramarathons.
The ‘Own Goal’ Award (in collaboration with Fossil Free Football): the football organisation or club that makes an own goal that could make us lose the match against climate breakdown.
The ‘Taking People for a Ride’ Award - for the sport, club or organisation that through inappropriate advertising or sponsorship deals most betrays or alienates its members and supporters.
The ‘Bad Bet’ Award: this award highlights the sports organisations that have made a commercial decision that could become a thorn in the side of their sustainability initiatives.
You do not need to have a nomination for each category and can add as many or as few as you like. Nominations will remain open until the beginning of December and the winners announced shortly thereafter.
Last year’s winners can be found here.