‘Big Cats’, brand reviews and the rampant commercialism of the Lions | Gerard Meagher

No Lions tour before 1991 made a profit but, with 35,000 fans expected to descend on New Zealand and 11 major sponsorsnow, the brand is big businessRegardless of what is on the menu at London’s Hurlingham Club, it will not match the delicious irony served up a week next Wednesday. It is an evening with the “Cambridge University Big Cats” and, if the billing sounds contrived, it is because the British & Irish Lions have instructed them to drop “Lions” from the title. Quite apart from the fact that Cambridge have provided the Lions with 73 tourists over the years – more than any other club –…