yeah, deb2world!! two thumbs up for your funny.
I personally have no problem with it. Hell, with most major stadia being publicly funded I’m all in favor of any revenue source not related to sales or property taxes.
I’ve much better things to be upset by than Network Associates Coliseum.
::deb bows::
Thank you.
It is inevitable, soon advertising will be appearing on every square inch of visible space. I vaguely recall reading a science fiction story about this, something about people living in a glass house and every day new advertisements were pasted on the outside, facing inwards. Interior housepaint was illegal.
And it isn’t restricted to visible spaces either. I had an epiphany about this many years ago, I was rolling a cigarette (tobacco only, really!) and I pulled a paper out of the pack and a little slip of paper that said “Time to buy more Zig-Zag papers” popped out. And stuff like this still happens today. A few weeks ago I ate a popsickle and when I finished, there was a message printed on the stick, “for more delicious treats, visit http://www.icecreamcompany.com!” Oh, I just can’t stand it anymore.
This message brought to you by AT&T Broadband. Increase your surfing speed up to 10 times with AT&T Broadband!
Gotta second Hibbins’s emotion here. No sense getting pissed at Verizon for taking advantage of what was freely offered to them.
Now, let’s be fair, John. Jack Kent Cooke only wanted to name the land around the stadium ‘Raljon’. The Stadium itself he named for the most important person in his life, himself.
And I kind of like Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. The ‘Squire of DC’ was one of the more interesting characters in a town that always seems sort of articificial. And, truth be known, he never ONCE threatened to move the team out of the area when he kept getting stymied about getting a stadium. Gotta respect that.
If I resent Dan Snyder for anything (and I don’t really) it’s changing the name from JKC Stadium to Fedex Field. It just seems disrespectful. The Squire deserved better than that.
For eighty thousand bucks, I’ll tattoo DRINK THE FINE PRODUCTS OF THE COCA-COLA CORPORATION: IT’S THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES! on my forehead.
Think PepsiCo would be interested in closing this deal?
Yeah, a lot of us had epiphanies in those days! 
I have no problem whatever with FedEx Field. First of all, it hadn’t been anything else for all that long; the Redskins were in RFK when they won their most recent Hyperbole. But, more important to me at least, is that Cooke built his stadium with his own money. It was his, and now it’s The Danny’s, and IMHO, he can do whatever he wants with it.
I have a much harder time with publicly-funded facilities. I intensely dislike it when we, the taxpayers, pay the vast majority of costs for a facility, and then some corporation pays a relative pittance at the end to get its name on the stadium, concert venue, or whatever.
Corporations have used their clout to drastically reduce their share of taxes at all levels in recent decades, starving public coffers. Then the local governments have to sell what they have - in this case, naming rights - to the corporations for a few bucks.
It’s especially obnoxious in the case of stadiums and other sports arenas, where the stadium generally wouldn’t have needed to be built in the first place if the team hadn’t threatened to blow town. In cases like that, the city/county is squeezed every which way.
A week or two ago, Peter Angelos was awarded naming rights to Orioles Park at Camden Yards. ::shudder::
The First Union Center in Philly. Yup, that’s right: Proudly known as the F.U. Center. Only in Philadelphia…
Well, Jeez. Wouldn’t you?
RT has valid points, but that didn’t seem to be the point of the OP–it just seemed to be that he plumb didn’t like it. I suppose there are issues of civic beautification or somesuch that could be brought in, but it really doesn’t matter to me too much in the long run.
On one level, in Cleveland there are Jacobs Field and Gund Arena. Does it really make a difference that the names are those of the team owners (former team owners, in Jacobs’ case) rather than Verizon or Enron or 3Com? The Gunds and Dick Jacobs are two of the biggest commercial property developers in the region, so in effect the names are advertisements for their commercial ventures.
But more importantly, if I’m going to see a band or a sports team that I enjoy, what difference does it what the venue is named? If I’m going to see a band, it doesn’t matter whether I’m seeing them at Deer Creek this or Verizon that–the music is the same!!
Great Woods in eastern Massachusetts is no more. The outdoor concert area is now called… ready for this?
“The Tweeter Center”
BLEECCCHHH!!!
You CAN cash in on a small scale yourself if so inclined. This outfit will pay you money to have ads painted on your car. You may have seen a “Yahoo” car or two:
http://www.autowraps.com/driver_about_us.html
It’s an old idea, actually - decades ago there used to be an outfit that specialized in paying VW beetle owners to have ads painted on them. And long before that, many farmers made a couple extra bucks by allowing their barns to be emblazoned with “Chew Mail Pouch”.
In Columbus, the Buckeyes don’t play hoops in the Schottenstein Arena anymore; now it’s the ever so tactfully sounding Value City Arena. Has a ring to it doesn’t it? …a very evil ring that is.
One day, the world will look like a goddamn NASCAR venue with logos pasted on every surface area. Shameless.
The main thing is not to name it after some nutjob who eventually kills someone, forcing you to remove his name (DuPont Pavillion, Villanova University – now just The Pavillion).
I’ll give you 80 bucks to tattoo DINK on your forehead.
At least in the Bay Area, no corporate sponsor has renamed the Cow Palace, a venue name which makes me smile everytime I hear an event at it advertised.
If you want this to stop, BTW, it’s going to have to stop working. Fat Chance. Name recognition counts for a lot, no matter how much the corporation irritated you making you learn the name and keeping it familiar. If asked to name wireless phone service companies, most people are going to say “Verizon” within their first couple choices. Not bad, considering they name was fairly recently coined (Verizon was the result of a merger between Bell Atlantic and GTE). More people than you would like to admit are going to go get Verizon phone service when they buy a cell phone just because it’s the first name they think of.
Hell, I have a few shares of Verizon stock, purchased when their strike pushed the price down. They’ve been doing well for me.
Double Income, No Kids? (Well, that’s what DINK means to me, since I am one and all. :p)
Never mind naming rights to stadiums – how about selling the naming rights to your kids? “Verizon Smith”? “Hewlett-Packard Jones” (the hyphen adds a snooty touch, don’t you think?)?
Heck, think of the nice chunk of change you could make selling your own naming rights as an adult! Race car drivers already plaster themselves with corporate logos. Consumers cover themselves with designer labels. Heck, my favorite sweatshirt has a big ol’ Coca-Cola logo on it. Why not go all the way? Meet the new me, Scarlett Coca-Cola, and here’s my darling hubby, Mr. Coca-Cola. There are beverages in the fridge – help yourself!
(Hey, wait a minute – didn’t we already have a President Ford? Isn’t it high time for a President Hyundai?)
[sub]Blecch indeed.[/sub]
I’d volunteer, but I’m busy this weekend. It’s now called “Reliant Arena” or “Park” or “something-or-other”.
As for Compaq (sorry; I haven’t been in Houston long enough to have known it as the Summit), I just think of it as “Laptop” and it sounds cuter, somehow.
Robin