Buying the rights to name a sports stadium

Factual Questions
1

I just returned from a visit to Denver where there is a lot of controversy about Mile High Stadium. After having the taxpayers foot the bill, the owners now want to make a few more bucks by selling the name. Well, it’s more than a few.

Here in Boston, the Boston Garden sold out and became the Fleet Center. Great Woods is now Tweeter Center. Harbor Lights has been renamed. If the Red Sox get can get the taxpayers to pony up more than 35%, they’re going to build a new park, but it won’t be Fenway Park.

Here’s the question: When did this prostitution start? What was the first major park (or entertainment center)? Where will this end? And when will somebody have the audacity to open the Tampa Tampax Terrarium?

2

Umm, no. Boston Garden became outdated and was replaced by the Fleet Center.

3

Naming sports stadiums after corporate entities dates back further than the renaming of Wrigley Field from Weeghman Park back in 1916 (or thereabouts).

It’s just a bit more crass now.

4

The difference is that in the past, the park was named after the owner or someone connected with the team. Now it’s out for bid.

5

The new building was going to be the Shawmut Center (The 'Mut), but Fleet Bank bought Shawmut Bank and inherited the naming rights. A lot of local fans call the new building “The Gahden” anyway (including me), when they’re not looking at concessions and Celtics ticket prices and calling the place the “Fleece Center”. The new baseball park is still going to be Fenway, no matter what name is on it (unless the new owners succeed in getting it built behind Fan Pier, where it belongs).

I don’t really mind putting the GeneriCorp.Com or some such name on a new building with no history to it - I tell myself that’s money I’m not paying in my ticket price (not that that’s cheap anyway). But if GeneriCorp wants me to call Candlestick Park or Riverfront Stadium by some other name, they can pay me to.

6

A funny thing, when the owner of Anheuser-Busch bought the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953, he wanted to rename the park Budweiser Stadium. Major League Baseball got huffy and his own marketing people told him there would be a fan backlash.

7

After years of trying to get a new stadium built for the Washington Redskins, Jack Kent Cooke finally got it built in Maryland and named it, of course, Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. IIRC, it wasn’t finished by the time he died.

Then for some reason, his sons couldn’t keep the team in the family. They sold it, and the new owner quickly sold the naming rights to Federal Express. Now “The Cooker” is “FedEx Field”.

Just desserts, IMO. Cooke was an arrogant bastard who thought everyone should kiss his ass because he was rich.

Oh, he had also gotten a ZIP code assignment for the stadium, and named it Raljon (after his two sons, Ralph and John). After the buy-out, Raljon, MD has disappeared.

8

Getting back to the OP question, two of the oldest (non-owner named) I remember are (were) Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, NY and Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough MA. Rich Stadium is now Ralph Wilson Stadium and Schaefer is now Foxboro Stadium.

9

I’m not sure why, but JKC said that the team was going to be put up for sale, rather than inherited by his kids. So, they had to bid for it, and couldn’t get the money together to do so.

The rest, including Danny Snyder, FedEx Field, and Deion Sanders, is history…