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Worst Ride Sponsorships

Sandman

Giga Poster
There have been some pretty jarring ride sponsorships over the years... which in your opinion is the worst and why?
 

Rob Coasters

Hyper Poster
-Blue Fire sponsored by very dodgy Russian gas company
-Fantablivion
-The Walking Dead the Ride
-Red Force and just the general Ferrari sponsor of Ferrari Land. Will expand upon this later

There's also Wodan being sponsored by a jeans company but while incredibly strange I haven't heard anyone raise concerns about the sponsor, how it changed the ride, or the general dodginess of the company.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
In Googling for an image to show it off - the one I was thinking of turns out to have actually been posted in a CF thread from many years back!

eltoro2.JPG


I always think of these as being incredible cheap and nasty looking.
 

nadroJ

CF Legend
-Blue Fire sponsored by very dodgy Russian gas company
-Fantablivion
-The Walking Dead the Ride
-Red Force and just the general Ferrari sponsor of Ferrari Land. Will expand upon this later

There's also Wodan being sponsored by a jeans company but while incredibly strange I haven't heard anyone raise concerns about the sponsor, how it changed the ride, or the general dodginess of the company.

TWD isn’t sponsorship, it’s IP.
 

Benenen

Hyper Poster
The Yorkie sponsorship of Stealth is something which certainly comes from a different time (even if that time was only 2009):
View attachment 15751
Casual sexism and a Bluetooth fueled competition presumably designed for Blackberry owners, what a throwback.

A lot of the Europa ones frustrate me because it's too good a park to have as much advertising as it does. The Mercedes stuff on Silver Star is alright as at least the ride is racing themed even though it's area has the deadest atmosphere of the whole park due to it. Similarly whatever energy company is now sponsoring Blue Fire is fine as it loosely fits the theme of the ride. But the Mustang Jeans sponsorship on Wodan really bugged me. It's a gorgeous coaster with a beautiful queue, atmospheric soundtrack, etc but you have to sit on the brakes in the maintenance shed looking at jeans adverts. For arguably the most premium park in Europe it's brand damaging what they've done to Wodan.
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
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Dragon’s Fury and Skips crisps. What the prawn flavoured melt-in-your-mouth, maize-based snacks had to do with it is still beyond me? Maybe a connection with the queue-skipping help yourself fastrax ticket machines in the early days?

And Irn Bru at Blackpool. Like to think it had something to do the Scottish brand trolling Pepsi Max. “You might have the Big One, but ours is orange and makes your teeth hurt. Just like our drink.”

Nether of them were aesthetically jarring, they simply bugged me.
 

Indy

Hyper Poster
The West Coast Customs tie-in to West Coast Racers is pretty cringy. I laughed pretty hard when that ride got announced. Not only is it a sponsorship, but the ride is actually themed around it and they missed the boat by about 15 years.

I think Steel Curtain might be king though. Again, the entire attraction is themed around it. And to make matters worse, it doesn't fit the park, and especially that area of the park, at all. Yeah, it's pure Pittsburgh and I'm sure the city's residents loves it, but it's so tacky.

But in the more traditional sense of sponsorship, I hated when Six Flags Over Georgia had Mindbender wrapped in Stride gum sponsorship. It was a shame to see such a fantastic Schwarzkopf defaced like that.
 

Y. Kim

Mega Poster
Let's see two prefabs full of ad.

What about KIA Soll train on El Toro?
El_Toro-5.jpg
source: https://www.coastergallery.com/1999/El_Toro_4.html

Or another Prefab is doing "SKT telecommunication company" advertise on its name? and lots of ad board on the structure? Due to that ad, the ride name was Alpine Express, but it was changed to "SK"T Express. To see the pros, the name became much shorter and easy to pronounce in Korean.
2008031912058872520.73566200.jpg
 
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Christian

Hyper Poster
IMG_5551-900x600.jpg

Energylandia does sponsorships pretty well. But their waterpark is something different. Starts with a stupid name. Either it's "Big Milk Water Park" or "Energylandia Water Park Big Milk". They use both names. And it has Big Milk written everywhere on slides and everything. It's so cringe that a waterpark has "Milk" in it's name. It's worse than naming a coaster after a petrol station. Which they also do.
 

Gazza

Giga Poster
The Yorkie sponsorship of Stealth is something which certainly comes from a different time (even if that time was only 2009):
View attachment 15751
Yeah I remember seeing Yorkies in the UK and thinking it was the most cringe thing ever.
How did the brand even come to exist? How did it last more than a few months?
 
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