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Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their British Olympic team. The brand was developed after the nation's poor performance in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and is now a trademark of the BOA. It is meant to unify the team as one body, irrespective of each member athlete's particular sport. Officially, the team is the "Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team", although athletes from Northern Ireland may opt to compete under the auspices of the Olympic Federation of Ireland instead.
The name was trademarked in September 1999 at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO).
The Team GB brand was used as part of a licensing and merchandising strategy following the BOA's athletes success at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Bogdanowicz stated that the BOA wanted to "cement the Team GB brand in the minds of the British public".
In June 2009, Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Sports Minister Gregory Campbell suggested that the name should be changed as the abbreviated form was not inclusive enough as it "excludes, and indeed alienates, the people of Northern Ireland". Campbell's successor, Nelson McCausland, also suggested that an alternative name be found.
A significant complication is that the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), established in 1920, as the 'Irish Olympic Council', but not admitted by the IOC until June 1922, whilst all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, claims to represent the whole Ireland and not merely the Republic. The OCI and the BOA have an agreement under which Northern Ireland sportspeople may choose to compete for either team. HL Deb 21 October 2004 vol 665 c99WA Hansard
The BOA has rejected calls for the name to be changed to Team UK, arguing that neither Team GB nor Team UK are entirely accurate, given that neither term covers all the members of its association, and that Team GB is an "effective trading name that fitted best with the Olympic identification of GBR".
The existence of a Team GB has been criticised by Welsh and Scottish nationalists, advocating for separate Welsh and Scottish olympic teams instead. Criticism of specific sport teams representing Great Britain instead of their home nations have also been voiced, especially in association football where the four nations compete separately, and fears a GB football team would threaten their separate national football teams. Some Welsh footballers, playing for a GB Olympic football team, did not sing "God Save the Queen", the national anthem used, in 2012, facing some criticism, however the team's manager stated it was a personal decision.
Comedian and columnist David Mitchell described the BOA's decision to create a nickname and rebrand their representative team as "capitalism's final victory" and "pathetic", going on to say that anyone who thought rebranding the Olympic squad has helped win more medals "are either morons or they think our athletes are". Scottish columnist Gerry Hassan commented that "Team GB represents something which is a fiction and an illusion which doesn't correspond with any political form".
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