I Am Wondering How Many People Have Learned About Quiktrip Over The Past Five Days
Cultural Transference via Sleeve Patch Sponsorships
NOTE: As I stated in my 10th Anniversary Post on the main site, I’m going to experiment with putting less text-intensive posts here on the Substack because I have thoughts and I actually enjoy using this site’s post editor. I’ll try to not to wear out my welcome in your inbox.
As a soccer fan, it’s not overwhelmingly jarring for me to see the sleeve-patch ads that adorn baseball jerseys now. I am used to worse. My five favorite MLS matches that I can pull off the top of my head right now featured these shirt-sponsorship matchups:1
2015: Alaska Airlines versus Ivy Investments Hedge Fund Management
2019: YouTube TV digital cable service versus Herbalife Multi-Level Marketing Schem, 2016: Banque Municipal d’Ontario versus Banque Municipal d’Ontario
2016: XBOX 360 Video Games Console versus Banque Municipal d’Ontario
2020: Etihad Airlines versus Orlando Health hospital
It is odd, though, to sit here in my living room and watch my beloved hometown Kansas City Royals take on the New York Yankees with these big patches on their left sleeves. The Yankees have a (relatively) smoothly integrated little navy-blue rectangle advertising Starr Insurance, a company I hadn’t heard of prior to tonight, one whose Wikipedia page just got a first-time visitor. Though one can’t count anything out for sure, I am pushing thirty and fairly certain that I will never in my life be in a situation in which I need “aviation, marine, energy [or] excess casualty insurance.”
The Royals’ patch is, to put it nicely… conspicuous. It’s a big crimson square with the QuikTrip logo. It doesn’t blend in at all with our classic white and royal blue. There is no artistry, no subtlety, no gestalt to this big square gas station logo on our team’s shoulder.
The complete verisimilitudinal disregard displayed by these baseball team sponsor patches differs from what we have in soccer. Most soccer sponsorship logos are at least monochromatic, so we don’t get such aggressive contrasts. We still get the odd Defense Contractor and multiple unique Multi-Level Marketing scams in there for good measure. Sporting KC’s sponsor is a leading producer of salt, magnesium chloride, and sulfate of potash, according to Wikipedia.
My point is this: It’s impossible not to notice our big QuikTrip logo patches. QuikTrip has such a ubiquitous presence in my life (case in point: I bought gas at a QT earlier today) that I don’t even think about it. QT is basically shorthand for “Gas Station” for me. I have as much brand loyalty to QuikTrip as I do for the United States Postal Service. I care as deeply for QuikTrip as Torontonians care for LCBO.2
But I have been thinking this while watching the Royals cling to their postseason lives in the American League Divisional Series against the Yankees:3 The Yankees are the biggest viewership draw in Major League Baseball. They have the biggest fanbase of anyone. A cursory Google search I just did revealed that Game 1 of the Royals/Yankees series brought in 3.2 million viewers, even up against a college football Saturday night. There are millions of people from the Northeastern part of the country, and probably even more around the world, who have learned about QuikTrip for the first time this week. Casual Yankee fans in Yonkers, Schenectady, Harrison, Storrs, and other assorted places have seen this sleeve logo and thought “What’s QT?”
How many of them looked up the QuikTrip Wikipedia page? Did they learn that the store was founded by classmates Burt Holmes and Chester “Chet” Cadieux? How many went to QuikTrip.com and scoped out the closest QT to them? If they’re in the Tri-State Area, their closest is way down in North Carolina. Did they learn about the offerings of the QT Kitchens? Were they envigorated by the concept of a Snackle? Do they ow about the Frozen Caramel Cappuccino slushie/milkshake things you used to be able to get there? They were like 500 calories but in the early afternoon during a drive home when the fatigue started to set in there was nothing better. There’s nothing I want more whenever I walk into a QuikTrip nowadays but they’re just not there anymore. They don’t have the Frozen Caramel Cappuccinos anymore. They have a series of beer taps that pour out pre-made hot espresso drinks and a panini press in the back but my stomach — nay, my soul — yearns for a Frozen Caramel Cappuccino and I worry I’ll never again have one. Did the New Yorkers learn about that?
I actually hadn’t ever thought to catalog this. This will give me something to do on one of my commutes out to Johnson County next week.
Little Ontario-specific joke for my followers. LCBO is a government-run liquor store chain in Ontario.
As I type this, the Yankees finished the job and won the series. Congratulations to the New York Yankees