Hardly Sporting

On Thursday, an international UNESCO convention on doping goes into effect. While the agreement is unlikely to put a stop to doping in sports any time soon, it represents the first time that governments around the world have agreed to throw the force of international law behind the problem.

"Until now, doping cases have been handled by sporting authorities. This puts it in the countries' courts of law," said Christoph Breuer, a professor of sports management at the Athletics College of Cologne.

The international accord can be seen as a vote of confidence in German's National Anti-Doping Agency, NADA, and its international offshoot, World Anti Doping Agency (WADA ).

Dancing to their own tune

But corporate sponsors, who may have millions riding on the image of cleanliness in sports, have stayed out of the fray, mostly dealing with the issue in their own way.

"As far as I know, sponsors have been fairly reluctant to join in the active fight against doping," said Christian Sachs, a spokesman for the federal Interior Ministry committee that supported the UN treaty. "We want to encourage sponsors within the field of sport to contribute to the funding of NADA, which they have hardly done up to now."

Indeed, corporate sponsors generally take a reactive, not a proactive, stance, said Breuer from the Athletics College.

The upside of scandal

"Often, when an athlete is first suspected of doping, a corporate sponsor's first reaction is to stand behind them and protect them," he said. "But once the charges are proven, the sponsors often separate from the athlete."

Yet, Breuer added, there are certain instances in which doping allegations can actually work in a sponsor's favor: "For an unknown firm, a doping case might serve to boost its profile. Even if its negative publicity, the name will be known."

For the past several years, it has been the norm in the sports marketing world for sponsors to put an escape clause in their contract that ends the sponsorship if an athlete or team is accused or convicted of doping.

Still, the bad taste of a doping accusation can linger, and become an image nightmare for a company that has the misfortune to back the wrong athletes.

The case of Jan Ullrich

"This is the most castastrophic thing that can happen in sports sponsoring, and we advise our clients to be very careful before they get into any endorsement contracts," said Stephan Schröder, who is on the managing board of the Cologne-based sports marketing consultancy Sport+Markt.

Schröder cited as an example the case of Jan Ullrich. The German cycling star was booted by his sponsor T-Mobile after he was implicated in a highly publicized doping investigation shortly before last summer's Tour de France. After losing his German racing license, Ullrich moved to Switzerland and has been busy fending off both German and Swiss allegations ever since.

T-Mobile, meanwhile, was saddled with an enormous image problem -- which it fought with an intensive public relations offensive, according to Schröder.

T-Mobile reacts

"The company took a very aggressive stance and went straight to the press," Schröder added. "They distanced themselves from Ullrich, and said they were working hard to clean up the image of the rest of the team."

Indeed, shortly after the Ullrich scandal broke, T-Mobile announced plans to take a "tough stance in the fight against doping" by putting a German physician in charge of the team and "consistently evaluating and monitoring the training methods" of the riders. T-Mobile also committed some financial support to the anti-doping agency NADA, among other measures.

According to Schröder, "actively supporting the image of fair play in sports" could be a good solution to the problem sponsors are faced with when fighting an image soiled by doping allegations.

PR vs marketing

But others say it is unlikely that voluntary funding for anti-doping agencies would ever take an important role in corporate image building.

"Companies have two marketing goals when they go into corporate sports sponsorship: becoming better known, and improving their image. Funding NADA and WADA would fall more under social sponsoring, and PR, than sports sponsoring," Cologne Athletic College's Breuer said.

"You can't expect companies to invest in that, it wouldn't be an efficient way of meeting their goals," he added.

But wouldn’t the entire sporting world benefit from cleaner sports all around?

In principle, yes, said Breuer. But in business, he added, "People tend to think in the short term, not the long term."