Zenit St. Petersburg have received a a €6.8m offer from Burger King to change the team's name to Zenit Burger King according to a tweet from Artur Petrosyan of Sport-Extress.ru.
Every now and then you'll hear a story about a club changing their stadium name to go with a sponsor, like the briefly named Sports Direct (St. James' Park). That tends to go down rather poorly among the fans who feel like the history of a club is being destroyed.
Then you can go one step further and rename the club itself, as is the case with Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg. Red Bull bought over Salzburg and rebranded the club, changed the management and staff and declared Red Bull Salzburg as a new club. The supporters eventually split and a new club was formed which would be loyal to the old traditions. You could say then that the re-branding didn't go well.
Zenit have received a €6.8-million offer from @BurgerKing to change team's name to "Zenit Burger King".
— Artur Petrosyan (@arturpetrosyan) September 2, 2016
With that in mind, it's safe to say that the incorporation of a classic image of American commercialism like Burger King into a club like Zenit would not exactly be a smooth transition.
The American burger chain are obviously sick of McDonald's cornering the market on basically everything and have decided to buy the naming rights to a club in a league which is rather racist. Now that's good PR!
Zenit's official Twitter account weren't too long getting back to Burger King with a fairly clear response.
Who's the king?! pic.twitter.com/DMI9rKoHxz
— ФК «Зенит» (@zenit_spb) September 2, 2016
What a bizarre time to be alive. At least the Zenit faithful can be happy that
But think of the half-time Whoppers lads! Surely they'd be subsidised too. They've missed out on that one to be fair.
You know what? Zenit St. Petersburger King is a catchy enough name. I say go for it!
