A familiar sight hovering over major sporting events, the Goodyear Blimp takes corporate identity to lofty heights as a Design and Business Classic.

The Goodyear blimp gives real meaning to the term "promotional vehicle." Emblazoned with the logo of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, it has been a familiar sight at major sporting events since the 1960s when it became a "platform" for telecasting a bird's-eye view of the activities below..

Goodyear's blimp tradition began in 1925 when the company built its first helium-filled public relations airship, the Pilgrim, painted its name across the sides and barnstormed the country. An awesome sight, crowds loved it. Over the years, Goodyear built 300 more airships, making its hometown of Akron, Ohio, the center for blimp manufacturing..

In the early 1930s, the U.S. Navy commissioned Goodyear to build two 400,000-pound rigid airships, each measuring the length of seven football fields and needing 6.5 million cubic feet of helium to become airborne. Designed as aerial aircraft carriers, they could launch and retrieve specially equipped planes while in flight. Unfortunately, the lumbering giants were lost in severe storms within two years. But the U.S. Navy continued to rely on a fleet of 150 smaller Goodyear-built blimps to conduct aerial surveillance for military convoys and merchant fleets along the coast. Able to stay aloft for more than a week at a time, Navy blimps remained in service until 1962.

Today Goodyear no longer mass-produces airships. It only operates blimps to serve as its worldwide "Aerial Ambassadors." Its current fleet of seven airships three in the U.S., two in Europe, one in South America and one in Australia cover more than 120 events annually, traveling over 400,000 miles at speeds of 35 miles per hour. In the U.S. alone, more than 60 million people get a first-hand look at a Goodyear blimp at sporting events each year, with millions more viewing this beloved corporate icon on television a successful promotional program by any measure.