One of the themes covered recently at LeapRate has been the increasing use of sports sponsorships as a branding and marketing tool in the online trading world. A number of leading European soccer clubs have Forex sponsors, including iconic clubs Manchester United, Atletico Madrid and Messi’s Barcelona FC. Forex brokers sponsor other action sports such as Formula One Red Bull Racing, and the Tour de France.
Well now button-down investment bank is taking a page out of the Forex playbook, hiring current England national team rugby coach Eddie Jones to its Japan advisory board.
Before joining England this fall, Jones – who is Australian – completed a three-year stint as Japan’s national rugby coach, leading Japan to its best-ever result in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Also interesting to note is that current Goldman Sachs Japan President Masanori Mochida played rugby for Keio University.
The official role of Goldman country advisory boards are to meet a couple of times a year and advise the corporation on cultural and public policy issues and trends in the country. However the real role of adding someone such as Eddie Jones is to use his celebrity in the country to help open doors and brand Goldman as a market leader. Given that Jones only spent three years in Japan and now is no longer there further outlines that in this case.
Rugby is still a non-major sport in sports-crazy Japan, but is gaining popularity, especially with Jones’ squad decent result at the last Rugby World Cup. Japan is going to host the next cup in 2019, meaning that the profile of the sport – and Jones’ popularity – should be on the rise over the next four years.