https://www.visacashapprb.com/team-launch/
San Francisco, Faenza and Milton Keynes, UK· The Formula One grid is charging into the 2024 season with a new look and new support. Today, Red Bull Fl Teams and Visa (NYSE: V) announced an unprecedented multi-year agreement where Visa will become the first global partner of both Red Bull Fl teams, bringing a new look team to the Fl grid in the form of Visa Cash App RB, formerly Scuderia AlphaTauri.
- Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team, 24th Jan 2024.
What?
What?!
WHAT?!
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.
It is not impossible for sporting clubs and teams to be named after the companies with own them. Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH or Bayer Leverkusen, was founded in 1904 by employees of the German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG. Likewise, a headline sponsor claiming the naming rights of a Formula One team goes back to at least 1968 when John Player & Sons Ltd. bought the naming rights and the livery rights for Team Lotus; thus from 1968 onwards Team Lotus was officially named Gold Leaf Team Lotus or JPS Lotus. In 1986, Toleman Motorsport was bought by Luciano, Giuliana, Gilberto and Carlo Benetton, who owned the fashion company Benetton Group SpA. They formally changed the name from Toleman Motorsport to Benetton Formula Lt, or simply Benetton, and the team has been passed from hand to hand many times since. The idea that a team can change its name is not new at all.
For the 2024 season, the team name iterations are for all current teams are broadly...
Ferrari
McLaren
Williams
Haas
(these four have changed sponsor alignment names but never actually the name of the team)
Stewart -> Jaguar -> Red Bull (3)
BAR -> Honda -> Brawn -> Mercedes-Benz (4)
Sauber -> BMW -> Sauber -> Alfa Romeo -> Sauber (5)
Toleman -> Benetton -> Renault -> Lotus -> Renault -> Alpine (5)
Jordan -> Midland -> Spyker -> Force India -> Racing Point -> Aston Martin (3)
This team has been rebranded surprisingly few times...
Minardi -> Toro Rosso -> Alpha Tauri -> Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team (4)
What?
What?!
WHAT?!
WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.
Somehow I feel that Red Bull GMBH of Austria has decided that by making their second team as hard as possible to pronounce, that they will put it into the mouths of the broadcasters for longer. That sounds like a good idea in principle but in practice, that's never going to happen. Broadcasters will shorten this in some way; even if the car is simply called a Visa.
At least when Gold Leaf Lotus bought the naming rights to Colin Chapman's team in 1968, they arrived at a name which was relatively easy to work with. Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team is not. VCARFOT is not any better. What's worse is that a single letter "V" also would have been a better choice than this. You know what would have been better than Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team? Anything!
Lance Stroll saw nothing wrong with renaming "Racing Point", "Aston Martin". Sauber rented out their name to "Alfa Romeo" for a while and this year they have reverted to Sauber; even if the official team team is something silly like Kick Sauber or whatever it is. Renaming Jaguar "Red Bull" or renaming Toleman "Benetton" were both pretty blunt but the truth is, that we eventually got used to them. Sauber have shown that they can rename themselves BMW or Alfa Romeo and then revert back to Sauber and it is fine. On that note, what would have been wrong with just Minardi? Formula One is just as much about the traditions and deep lore of the sport as any other sport. Twenty years later, the team from Faenza is still working out of that same place.
Eventually whatever you name a thing becomes normal, however weird. When I was in high school one of the running gags was that if a teacher ever asked for a team name in some instant jokey class competition for something, or maybe even in a sports competition, one of about a dozen of us across several classes would invariably call the team the "Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Team". This was not because we happened to like the inventor or the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, but because as 12 and 13 year old kids in Year 7, making a teacher say something stupid was hilarious. If you repeat a joke later, then it becomes a call-back. If you repeat a joke often enough, it becomes a running gag. If you repeat a joke for five or six years, then it becomes part of the fabric and furniture.
That is what the Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team sounds like to me. It sounds like the idea of a bunch of 12 and 13 year old kids in Year 7, who have been let loose to name a thing and they have done so badly. I have no doubt that Gold Leaf Team Lotus sounded weird when it was fist said but it eventually became part of the furniture. People still called the team "Lotus" though. In Australia the Marlboro Holden Dealer Team was usually shortened to the MHDT or even just HDT if that was necessary. When it came to putting the Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Team onto an electronic scoreboard in an indoor cricket centre, it was shortened to AGBMT. Probably VCARFOT might appear in the top left hand graphic during a Formula One broadcast but to impose that boat anchor around the neck of the poor commentator is simply daft.
A sport like NASCAR which has liveries changing from week to week in a kaleidoscope of colour, thinks nothing of weird team names for a week. Even then though, the commentary team will still refer to their cars as just the number such as "the 3" or "the 22". It doesn't matter how much "Go Bowling", or "Fed Ex Ground", or "Corvette Parts" have paid either. The ultimate statement that you can name a team anything and paint the car in any colour, is still brought back to a sensible centre with a pragmatic naming scheme. Unless the Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team changes their name to something at least sayable by normal people, then they too are in danger of being called "the 3" or "the 22".
Weird team names such as Life, Eurobrun, or Fondmetal, as well as three-letter-acronym abominations like AGS, ATS, and BAR, have all existed in the past. They were all reasonably acceptable because people could at least say them. The Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team is not really a Formula One Team name as it is a line from Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and even that would make for a better team name.
I think that if anyone does manage to say Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team in a broadcast then it should be immediately followed by "LEONARD BERNSTEIN" because it's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
Aside:
Is it any weirder than Lizardy Motorcycle Club? I don't think so.
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