Why Are There No Personal Logos In Athletics?

This week, it was revealed that golf brand TaylorMade filed three patents for a not-so-cryptic sub-brand potentially dropping in 2024. Those three trademarks registered through the United States Patent and Trademark Office were for logo alterations including SUNDAY RED, the initials SDR and a leaping tiger.

The most casual of sports fans could work out that this probably has something to do with Tiger Woods. Following his break-up with longstanding brand partners, Nike, it seems the greatest to ever play the sport is taking his next step with what is touted to be a new expansion into apparel.

I spent many an evening throughout my childhood dreaming up what my personal logo would have been if I was any good at any sport. David Beckham had one. Roger Federer had a beautiful one. And the Jordan brand is one of the most iconic brands on the planet. But racking my brains through the athletics world, even the likes of Usain Bolt, a man who carried the sport for years, could have capitalised far greater with a more ‘hoodie-able’ logo - the kind of thing I’d want to wear on a hoodie.

It’s worth noting, I was going to title this Why Are There No Personal Brands In Running? but Bolt was a brand in himself with his laid back personality and world famous celebration which, with many other attributes (including world record-breaking pace for that matter) form a modern brand, the same way Cristiano Ronaldo’s SIU celebration is part of his.

Logos however, have just as much power as a more general brand. Slap a TW onto a standard Nike cap and the thing has more value thanks to the way Woods has driven his sport forwards (pun intended). It’s gives sporting brands the same pull that a new signing in football has. All of a sudden we’re talking about shirt sales dwarfing the original fee for the player.

With interest in athletics making a healthy recovery since the Bolt era, and a new breed of superstar emerging with the likes of Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Jacob Ingebrigsten and Mondo Duplantis, all of whom aren’t new to a celebrity status thanks to their creator credentials off the track, should their be more personal logos, be that with a sporting brand or without? To me, it would financially make sense. Footwear and apparel would be the obvious way to take this.

But then again, perhaps I’m still seeing things a little rose-tinted coming out of witnessing Messi and Ronaldo, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, Lebron and Kobe, Tiger. Arguably the greatest few decades for sports we’ve ever seen, and a time when the athlete brand exploded, so having a personal logo was the norm.

In 2024, times may have changed. Younger athletes aren’t piggybacking on other brands work as much and are doing their own thing - becoming multi-hyphenates through fashion, YouTube, film and TV etc. Maybe the face is becoming the logo as our feeds shift to evermore visual and video-led formats. And with that we get even more access to athlete that we normally wouldn’t have seen.

All I know is, I love the idea of a personal logo for the top athletes, and it’ll be a sad day when they no longer see the need for one. Please afford me some space while this logo-phile contemplates what sports will look like when this day comes.