Business

The strangest business sponsorships (prostitutes, pantyhose, pudding and more)

The amateur Voukefalas soccer club in Greece now practices in pink jerseys featuring logos such as Villa Erotica and Soula's House of History after accepting sponsorship offers from brothels. Though prostitution is legal in Greece, the shirts have been banned during games because of their suggestive nature. Another team, Paleopyrgo, paired up with a funeral home and now plays ball in black shirts emblazoned with crosses.

The amateur Voukefalas soccer club in Greece now practices in pink jerseys featuring logos such as Villa Erotica and Soula’s House of History after accepting sponsorship offers from brothels. Though prostitution is legal in Greece, the shirts have been banned during games because of their suggestive nature. Another team, Paleopyrgo, paired up with a funeral home and now plays ball in black shirts emblazoned with crosses.   (Nikolas Giakoumidis / Associated Press)

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Things are so bad in debt-laden Greece that government spending cuts have left sports clubs limping.
But the game must go on, and so some team owners began looking for sponsorships -- and found funeral homes and brothels willing to shell out funds.
Here is a look at some of the stranger partnerships in sports and business history - ranging from the scandalous (male enhancement pills, anyone?) to the transparent (pantyhose looks good on burly quarterbacks too).

New York Mets deal with pudding maker and clown company

What goes best with baseball? Pudding and parties, supposedly. The New York Mets have sponsorship deals with both Kozy Shack, a maker of jiggly snacks, and Send in the Clowns, an entertainment company.  (Alan Diaz / Associated Press)

U.S. Army pulls out of NASCAR sponsorships

This summer, the U.S. Army cut ties with racing team Stewart-Haas after a decade of NASCAR participation, blaming the split on “a reallocation of its marketing budget that will not include a presence in NASCAR.”   (Darrell Ingham / Getty Images)

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