Sydney Marathon medal mistakenly depicts Munich stadium(www.bbc.com)
96 pointsby epestr5 hours ago10 comments
  • haunter4 hours ago
    Easy mistake when there are 7 Allianz Stadiums in the world

    https://www.allianz.com/en/about-us/brand/partnerships/stadi...

    And it was probably 8 when they were designing the medal but Palmeiras didn't extend the naming rights contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubank_Parque

    • jtari33332 hours ago
      Bayern Munich's stadium is one of the more famous in the world. More interesting that 0 people recognised it in the design process.
      • jfengel2 hours ago
        The US managed to issue a stamp with clearly the wrong Statue of Liberty.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty_Forever_stam...

        Which presumably everyone in the design process should have recognized, if not practically everyone in the world.

        The moral being, uh, it's weird how blind people can be when they're not looking for it.

        • zimpenfishan hour ago
          To be fair, if I'm reading that right, the difference is "a small light patch on the middle spike"?[0] I can see people missing that easily enough!

          [0] Absent contextual cues about height, location, etc., which aren't on the stamp

          • layer837 minutes ago
            It means that they used a photo with unclear provenance, or they didn’t check the provenance. For issuing a stamp, you don’t just take a random photo of the statue and eyeball it and say “looks close enough to me”.
        • patrickmcnamara2 hours ago
          Wow, the sculptor got 3.5 million USD for copyright infringement from his copycat statue.
          • adalacelovean hour ago
            The Statue of Greed, located appropriately at a Casino
          • thomascountz2 minutes ago
            More like, "Statue of Litigancy", am I right? /s
          • jryle70an hour ago
            If you release an open source software with GPL license that is just a wrapper of an MIT licensed library, and someone manages to misuse your software, should you be entitled to damages?
    • AlexandrB4 hours ago
      I always thought these corporate naming deals for stadiums were gross. I remember when Canadian stadiums had names like "The Coliseum" and "The Skydome" instead of "The Roger's Center".
      • mzajc3 hours ago
        They remind me of the "Brought to You by Carl’s Jr" scenes from Idiocracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAM1rSObk4c
        • gizajob3 hours ago
          Year of the Depend adult undergarment.
        • noitpmeder3 hours ago
          Brought to you by a burning desire to serve supremely my own interests.
      • larussoan hour ago
        Yes. Or in case of Berlin where whole places and other places get renamed when the sponsor changes. O2 Arena -> Mercedes Benz Arena -> Uber Arena. Even other locations around it changed as well as the plaza name.
        • Tomtean hour ago
          And when a FIFA world cup is hosted the stadium gets renamed for the duration if the stadium‘s sponsor isn‘t a FIFA sponsor.
      • jryle7023 minutes ago
        It's easy to say behind the comfort of the keyboard. For a sport team to exist and survive, there are only a few options:

        - Charge the fans more, revolt guaranteed, "forgetting the root, ungrateful" and all that.

        - Merchandise. Now teams change jersey every year -- with home, away, 3rd jerseys. Game, practice, and many more variations.

        - Beholden to the leagues. Premier League is prime example, or for a scandal see European Super League.

        - Advertising. Well, you know how HN hate advertising.

        - Sell out to the highest bidders. Red Bull, private equity (Liverpool, Arsenal, etc.)

        - Find a sugar daddy. Oligarchs or nation states (Roman Abramovich's Chelsea, Manchester City, Paris Saint Germain, Newcastle)

        Pick the least evils.

      • haunter3 hours ago
        Lower league european football kits are my favourite, there is a team behind the ads

        https://files.catbox.moe/a3fxhw.webp

        https://files.catbox.moe/0op34u.jpeg

        • dylan6042 hours ago
          That's the closest to Nascar I've seen yet. At the same time, I'm still a fan for the idea that elected officials should be forced to wear their sponsor's logos on their suits like this as well.
          • avidiaxan hour ago
            There would be a bunch of Super PACs with a fabric swatch as a logo.
        • skrebbel2 hours ago
          My favourite is MAC³PARK Stadium, the home of FC Zwolle in Zwolle, the Netherlands.

          It is named after MAC³PARK, a collection of extremely boring business parks (ie office buildings in an industrial zone). The business parks in question are in nowhere near Zwolle (for Dutch standards).

      • tokai36 minutes ago
        I much rather have corporations waste money funding sports that some people enjoy, than wasting it on commercial campaigns that does nothing but burn money and steal our attention.
        • 31 minutes ago
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      • c0balt3 hours ago
        E-Sports teams are still the funniest here. From Shopify Black/Rebellion Gold to T1.
      • sandworm1012 hours ago
        "BC Place" is still BC Place. It was the only World Cup venue that didn't have to hang drapes over its real name.
      • walthamstow3 hours ago
        Wait til you see the names of the actual teams in the Japanese baseball league.
        • inopinatus3 hours ago
          Real pro cycling teams:

              SmartStop-Mountain Khakis p/b Jittery Joe's

    Bodysol EuroMillions Pôle Continental Wallon
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCI_WorldTeam#2026 for this year's crop of linoleum manufacturers, insurance firms, and sportswashing petro-states.
          • tokai42 minutes ago
            Those two teams are/were not professional. Not that you are wrong about naming conventions.
          • noitpmeder3 hours ago
            I mean F1 teams are literally named directly after their corporate owners too (who are not necessarily the ones designing the engines/...) and people seem to love that.
            • walthamstow2 hours ago
              One German football team is named after a pharmaceuticals multinational.

              (A special case, it was the workers team for the Bayer plant, like Woolwich Arsenal or 'Locomotiv' of many Slavic cities)

              • sofixa2 hours ago
                At least that one started as a worker's club. The worse offender is named after an energy drink.
        • masfuerte3 hours ago
          This Indian cricket team is splendidly named:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune_Warriors_India

        • Azurealistic3 hours ago
          Any examples?
          • haunter3 hours ago
            Most of the NPB teams are corporate owned and named

            - Chunichi Dragons > Chunichi Shimbun (news corporation)

            - Hanshin Tigers > Hanshin Electric Railway

            - Tokyo Yakult Swallows > Yakult Honsha (yes, the probiotic milk beverage company)

            - Yokohama DeNA BayStars > DeNA (ecommerce/mobile games/online services)

            - Yomiuri Giants > Yomiuri Shimbun (media conglomerate)

            - Chiba Lotte Marines > Lotte Holdings (related to the South Korean Lotte Corporation mostly known for their confectionery and ice creams)

            - Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks > SoftBank (I think everyone knows them on HN)

            - Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters > Nippon Ham (food processing)

            - Orix Buffaloes > Orix (investment banking)

            - Saitama Seibu Lions > Seibu Railway

            - Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles > Rakuten (I think everyone knows them on HN)

            But that's not a Japanese only thing, the Korean (KBO) and Taiwanese (CPBL) baseball leagues are the same

            Kia Tigers, KT Wiz, LG Twins, Lotte Giants, Samsung Lions

            CTBC Brothers, Rakuten Monkeys, Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, Fubon Guardians

            And not even a baseball thing only the football teams in the region are the same

          • filoleg3 hours ago
            They basically embed company names directly into team names.

            Here is a couple of examples: Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

      • sofixa2 hours ago
        I get why they do it, but at the very least it should be "sponsor name real name", not "sponsor name generic description of arena".

        Spotify Camp Nou is annoying and worse than Camp Nou, but at least there is some soul and belonging. "Spotify Arena" would have been disgusting and empty.

        It always boggles my mind when fans say "so and so at the AT&T stadium"... Until a new sponsor comes in.

        • dylan604an hour ago
          >so and so at the AT&T stadium

          In at least one town with a stadium of that name, most people do not refer to it by that name. Instead, it is referred to as Jerry's World for the owner of the franchise.

          Concert venues are another naming rights area that is confusing. There's one in particular that has had its name changed so many times that I do not know what it is currently called. Instead, it is often referred to by the original sponsor by pretty much anyone of a certain age. Even if you call it the older name to younger people, they know which venue. Some names stick.

        • rasculan hour ago
          Capital One Arena is the current name for where the Washington Capitals play at home so that's an example that kind of works.
  • evnu3 hours ago
    The pun in this follow-up makes the whole mixup worthwhile: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4n4l1yyvro

    "'We're not going to run from it': Sydney Marathon laughs off medal error"

    • 15 minutes ago
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    • phatfish3 hours ago
      I guess they are laughing it off because it was another Allianz sponsored stadium depicted, and they got the OK from Allianz to make the joke as it is free attention.

      If the AI design had chosen a non-Allianz branded location I bet the response would be different.

      • MattRix2 hours ago
        The race has nothing to do with the stadium, other than running past it. They don’t have to get permission from anyone. Also, there’s no evidence that AI was involved, it could have just as easily been some designer googling for “Allianz Stadium” and illustrating the first thing that came up.
        • cube0011 minutes ago
          I'm very sceptical they paid a designer to redraw all these.
        • __san hour ago
          Years ago I was doing internal login pages for pay day loan insurance saas. Decided to put their logos to avoid mixups. Just googled. One was named Vision, copied logo from https://www.visions.ca figuring they did land on the side. Couple years later I realized my mistake & fixed, nobody else had said anything
    • netsharc2 hours ago
      Feels kind of pathetic high-schooler level response... "oh well, we're just going to laugh it off, please join us. Enjoy your sloppily* made medal!"

      * whether AI-assisted or just lazy human slop that went unnoticed up all the chain.

      My own footnote reminds me of this other slop: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/06/starbucks-sout...

      > It turned out some managers who approved the campaign never opened the email attachments showing the marketing material.

  • cjs_ac4 hours ago
    The government of New South Wales (the Australian state of which Sydney is the capital) commissioned a corporate logo depicting a waratah (the NSW state flower) and got one showing a lotus. They still use it on everything.
    • jordanb3 hours ago
      "Good enough for Australia" is a phrase I frequently heard from Aussies. There seems to be this attitude there that they're a frontier country where one improvises (half asses?) everything.
      • gizajob3 hours ago
        "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck." - coined by social critic and journalist Donald Horne in his 1964 book The Lucky Country.
        • contingenciesan hour ago
          On the subject of flowers, the late Donald was a friend of a family friend who came over one night and after drinking a huge amount of wine decided in a midnight fit of inspiration (when we'd all gone to bed) to rearrange flowers throughout the house. We woke up in the morning to find little bits of flowers everywhere except the vases! Sadly, she passed away recently but it became a running joke in the family. Good sorts.
          • gizajob22 minutes ago
            Why use ai to write nonsensical comments like this.
            • contingencies10 minutes ago
              Hahaha, thanks that gave me a laugh. I assure you my nonsense is natural.
      • shakna3 hours ago
        Pretty much. A lot of the innovations of our nation, come from that. Things like utes, inflatable escape slides on planes, race cameras, are all "hacks".

        But considering you can still see the gold mine which caused the foundation of my town, it isn't that surprising. We might not be the battlers we believe we are, but there's still a history of a people all around us.

    • crabmusket2 hours ago
      Wow, that always confused me since moving here. I thought I didn't know what a Waratah was, but no, it's the logo that's wrong.
    • jhy3 hours ago
      And they just flat out told everyone who pointed it out -- nope, you're looking at it wrong; and anyway we already paid those consultants so we'd better use it, what?
  • js240 minutes ago
    That time Ohio issued a license plate with the Wright Flyer flying backward and then the NC DOT razzed them about it:

    https://www.npr.org/2021/10/25/1048991822/ohio-reverses-cour...

  • 21 minutes ago
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  • kgermino3 hours ago
    Right there with the Milwaukee Marathon misspelling “Marathon” on their medals this year.

    https://marathonhandbook.com/milwaukee-marathon-handed-out-4...

  • lateral_cloud3 hours ago
    Someone vibed the medal design
    • seydor3 hours ago
      Model bias towards northern hemisphere
      • thesdev2 hours ago
        You can tell it's an Aussie medal because all landmarks are depicted upside-down.
    • abletterer3 hours ago
      AI slop all the way up to the physical world :D
      • qurren2 hours ago
        Actually AI would have probably gotten it right.

        The more likely explanation is that the person manually googled all the landmarks of Sydney to get some vector images to cut and paste into a CAD program to extrude, and accidentally got the wrong one.

        • cube0021 minutes ago
          Sad that it's acceptable to just take artwork from wherever and paste them all into a new design.

          I say "wherever" because if they were paying attention to the licences of their sources they'd see the artwork was named for a landmark wasn't in Sydney.

          Although I guess if the rights holder never knows about it, nobody is going to enforce the rights, probably hard to even prove it by the time its been shrunk and cast into metal.

  • jansan2 hours ago
    Allianz Marketing Head: My son's new favorite website is "Hackernews". They do not run ads, so how can we get the attention of their audience?
  • pranav_tech263 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • u890123 hours ago
    TCS. Say. no. more.