David Leggat: Sport's image in handsof players

A few years ago Garry Hocking was one of the heroes of Australian Rules.

A hard, rugged bloke who played centre - that's midfield in soccer-speak - for the famous Geelong club in 274 games over 14 seasons.

So imagine the general surprise when Hocking announced one day he was changing his name to Whiskas - not Garry Whiskas or Gary Whiskas-Hocking, just Whiskas.

Hocking had not fallen off his rocker. There was money on the table, a sponsorship deal with the cat food manufacturer.

He copped some flak, as you would expect - "stop playing like a pussy" ... "Geelong's engine room's purring" and so on. But it had the desired effect, promoting the product.

Similarly, the best story of this sporting week has to be English snooker legend Jimmy White.

He has changed his name by deed poll to Jimmy Brown, courtesy of a sponsorship deal with HP Sauce, for the duration of the Masters championship in London. HP are sponsoring the brown ball in honour of their celebrated brown sauce during the event and approached the 42-year-old Cockney, one of snooker's enduring characters. Would he be up for it? You bet.

He will wear a brown suit instead of the traditional tuxedo, topped off with a light blue bow tie. The idea is to resemble the sauce bottle.

"I think it's up to the players to help liven up the game's image," said lefthander White, nicknamed Whirlwind for his spectacular style at the baize table.

He's sure to get some gip when the MC calls him to the table for his first game on Monday night.

Remember James Brown, Godfather of Soul. How about Jimmy Brown, Godfather of the Pot? Expect a raft of reactions: he'll eat his opponents with bacon and toast for breakfast, boom boom.

If Shane Warne had been smart a few years back when he got a shipment of his favourite snack dispatched to the sub-continent he'd have renamed himself Shane Baked Beans, with the line: "It'll give me the runs to go with my wickets."

The English soccer star formerly known as Paul Gascoigne now calls himself G8 in an unsuccessful bid to part with his troubled past. He might as well head for Tibet and become a monk. Several years ago, in a slight variation, West Indies batsman Larry Gomes (rhymes with gnomes) announced that henceforth he wanted to be known as Larry Gomes (as in Go-Mez).

That had something to do with an ethnic issue, and didn't work anyway.

The days when long-established sports could survive purely on their basic appeal and skill are long gone.

They need to keep bums on seats. Gimmicks have a short shelf life but they are essential to capturing younger imaginations. Cricket needed the one-day game and coloured clothing - and that's starting to look jaded. Some tricks work, others don't.

When Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket began more than 25 years ago, one of the ploys to engage the audience was to have a bloke with a microphone stationed at the gate to get the views of each batsman as he headed back to the pavilion.

This didn't get through the first session once tough-talking Ian Chappell had given the viewers the lowdown on what he thought of his dismissal.

Rugby latched on to a winner with sevens 20-odd years ago.

Irrespective of whether it should be taken seriously or treated as a funsy sidebar to 15-a-side, it is undeniably popular.

Tennis opened the kaleidoscope of coloured clothing many years ago, not to mention technological advances to produce rackets which can propel the ball at blinding speed.

Now golf is looking at putting microphones on players to give television viewers a fresh perspective on the game.

Will it work? Who knows, but at least the sport recognises it can't stay still.

Just ask snooker.