The Cleveland Guardians Are Wearing the Wrong Logo On Their Sleeves
Guardians, by definition, protect and preserve. The company that paid for their shoulder patches, Marathon Petroleum, does the exact opposite, posing a major threat to public health and the environment.
A few weeks ago, I drove to Baltimore to see my favorite boyhood baseball team for the first time since it changed its name to the Guardians, and I noticed something jarring about their uniforms. No, I’m not talking about see-through pants. I’m talking about the patch on their sleeves bearing the logo of a company whose business is antithetical to the meaning of the team’s new moniker.
Guardians, by definition, protect and preserve. The company that paid for that patch, Marathon Petroleum, does the exact opposite, posing a major threat to public health and the environment. The country’s largest oil refiner with more than 7,000 Marathon and Arco gas stations nationwide, it ranks among the country’s top 50 air and water polluters as well as the top 20 carbon polluters, according to a 2023 report by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). Since 2014, the Findlay, Ohio-based company and its subsidiaries have been fined more than $900 million for federal environmental violations. Guardians they are not.
The fact that the Guardians now wear Marathon’s logo may not be news to Clevelanders, but it was to me. My current hometown team, the Washington Nationals, has not rushed to cash in on the sleeve logo craze that began last year after a 2022 labor contract allowed teams to add advertising patches to their uniforms, so I hadn’t been paying attention. Besides the Nike swoosh that has adorned the front of all MLB team jerseys since 2020, 17 MLB teams are now wearing jersey patches from corporations ranging from grocery chains and electronics firms to insurance businesses and energy companies.
Marathon Petroleum partnered with the Guardians because it wants baseball fans to think it’s a good corporate citizen. It is most definitely not.
To be sure, the Guardians are not the only team that has inked an oil patch deal. The Houston Astros (Oxy Energy), Kansas City Royals (QuikTrip), and Texas Rangers (Energy Transfer) also now display oil industry logos on their sleeves. Unlike Marathon Petroleum, however, only Oxy Energy—formerly Occidental Petroleum—and Energy Transfer are among the PERI’s top 50 air, water, and carbon polluters, and only in one category each. Based on 2021 data, Oxy Energy was the 35th biggest air polluter and Energy Transfer was the 34th biggest carbon polluter.
Marathon Petroleum, meanwhile, ranks as the nation’s 48th biggest toxic air pollution emitter, worse than Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company; the 25th biggest water polluter, worse than Chevron and Phillips 66; and the 18th biggest carbon polluter, worse than BP, Chevron, and Koch Industries. Despite its pitiful performance, the company maintains on its website that it is “committed to minimizing [its] environmental impact.”
Beyond its abysmal environmental record, Marathon Petroleum has played a key role in efforts to undermine federal climate-related regulations. In 2018, the company spearheaded a covert campaign to roll back U.S. fuel economy standards, disingenuously arguing that the country produces so much oil that it no longer has to worry about conserving it. If the campaign had been successful, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would have increased by as much as 931 million metric tons by 2035, more than the annual emissions of many midsize countries.
Marathon Petroleum’s logo also enjoys prime placement in the Guardians’ ballpark, which I first noticed when I caught an Orioles-Guardians game in Cleveland on cable earlier this month. A large Marathon logo sits below the baseline between home and first, a half-dozen logos are stacked on a padded column in front of the team’s dugout, and Marathon ads have been rotating through on computer-generated TV-visible signage behind home plate since the company became a Guardians’ corporate sponsor in 2021.
Corporations advertise with sports teams for two main reasons: to build trust and increase exposure. According to a 2021 Nielsen “Trust in Advertising” study, 81% of consumers completely or somewhat trust brands that sponsor sporting events, second only to the trust they have for friends and family. Jersey patches especially attract attention. Nielsen estimates that the average value of the live broadcast exposure a patch sponsor will receive over a full regular baseball season will exceed $12.4 million.
Marathon Petroleum partnered with the Guardians because it wants baseball fans to think it’s a good corporate citizen. It is most definitely not. The Guardians should find a more suitable sponsor when the company’s contract runs out at the end of the 2026 season—one that protects and preserves, not one that endangers public health and the future of the planet.
