The Spin | Cricket must rethink sponsorship deals amid ongoing climate crisis

The MCC says the climate crisis poses ?an existential risk? to cricket ? so questions must be asked of some headline sponsorsIn 1962 the London Royal College of Physicians published an in-depth and groundbreaking report on the dangers of smoking to human health. Ten years later the Benson & Hedges Cup was born ? a sponsorship deal between a tobacco company and cricket that lasted 30 years.The Sunday League knockabout was sponsored by John Player between 1969 and 1986, ciggies given out willy-nilly in dressing rooms from Headingley to Hove, 1980s all-rounders battled it out for the Silk Cut Challenge, while the 1992 and 1996 Cricket World Cups were sponsored by B&H and Wills cigarettes. So it went on, in as many sports as you could mention, until a ban on tobacco sponsorship and sport kicked in UK-wide in 2002. Continue reading...