Another example: Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, NY - a name with a historical basis in the Hudson Valley’s Dutch background, that’s why the NY basketball team is the Knicks - is now the Pepsi Arena. There was a big hullabaloo about it when it happened, and for a long time people still called in the Knick, but nowadays the kids who go to concerts there hardly even remember the Knickerbocker days and they just call it “The Pepsi.” :rolleyes:
And I’ll freely admit that if I could get corporate sponsorship I’d totally do it.
For what it’s worth, Safeco Field here in Seattle (which at least has the benefit of being short, unlike some of those marketing-department monstrosities) is regularly shortened to “The Safe” by sports broadcasters and other folks. The Safeco company, naturally, hates it.
Nanny nanny boo boo…
Well, on one hand, I don’t mind the new football stadium being named Heinz Stadium-considering that Heinz IS Pittsburgh, the Heinz family, Senator John Heinz, hell, I work at the Heinz Museum! (Named after Senator Heinz).
Well, everyone who is anyone in the Central Ohio area still calls it the Schott! You know, rhymes with shot. Our basketball team saw a lot of those.
Of course, you could fight back. Noone’s forcing you to call it by the new name. If everybody simply universally carried on calling it by the old name then the rebranding would fail.
In English football we used to have something called the League Cup. Then some bozo saw a marketing opportunity and sold the name. It has since been the Milk Cup, Coca-Cola cup and Worthingtons cup amongst other things. And what bewilders me is that everybody goes along with it. The name changes every few years and everybody spends 6 months saying “Coca-Cola… no… waith… Worthington Cup”. Bollocks to that. I still call it the League Cup - no confusion.
In particular it bugs me that the BBC go along with it. What - do they get paid to call it by the new corporate name? No? Then fuck’em. How soulless can the competition get?
pan
What’s even more disgusting is the Bank America signs they’ve stuck around War Memorial Stadium. Makes it look like they came up with the idea of honoring the State’s war veterans all by themselves.
Holy shit, I’m psychic:
Child’s name offered to highest bidder
Actually, yes, in effect.
Well, I can’t actually speak for the situation in the UK in re: the BBC. But I used to work for a radio station in Ohio that was at the time the flagship station for the Cleveland Indians radio broadcast network. The broadcast team for the games were employees of the Cleveland Indians, but our own air personalities were employees of the station. We were told by the Indians that, if [unnamed corporation] valued its broadcast contract with the Indians, its on-air staff would refer to the ballpark only as Jacobs Field, never by its popular nickname, “The Jake.”
I have little doubt that corporate entities like 3Com and PSINet, after paying for naming right, place economic pressure of some kind on teams to make sure their broadcasters refer to the stadia by the proper names. If I’m ESPN, I’m not going to risk losing advertising revenue by pissing off the people after whom the place is named. (Although I have heard network guys like Costas use nicknames or old names for ballparks before.)
Anyway, obviously in the UK teams can’t threaten to take their business to another broadcaster, but there may indeed be explicit or implicit economic incentives.
True phil, and it has crossed my mind. But the BBC in particular - well, they don’t get any advertising revenue! They don’t screen any commercials! In fact, since it is in their goddamed charter not to indulge in product placement, you’d have thought that they’d go out of their way not to call it the “Worthingtons Cup”.
They do have to bid for the right to show events like everyone else, but I can’t believe that they would be denied those rights just because they called it the “League Cup” on the Ten O’Clock News (Or Nine O’Clock or whatever time slot they’re going to change it to next week).
Or maybe I’m being naive, and that’s exactly what would happen. It still pisses me off though.
pan
Hell, bestowing more or less “public” facilities with monikers of monstrosity doesn’t stop at the front door to the corporate boardroom.
Let’s not forget the Ronald Reagan-Washington National Airport. Don’t like the effort to re-name a Metro stop after whatsisname there? Too bad, we’ll just cut off federal funding for the District.
It would seem that it is the changing of the name that is annoying, rather than the corporate name attachment. As shown in this thread there are many examples of corporate naming that are well accepted. Kabbes’ League Cup would probably become perfectly acceptable as the Coca-Cola Cup if it stayed that name for a long period of time. Take the Winston Cup for example. It has been around for so long and has become so ingrained as the name of the ultimate level in stock car racing that many don’t consciously realize that the “Winston” in Winston Cup refers to cigarettes.
I was just about to post a link to the same article! I love this part:
Yeah. Sure. I challenge them to come up with a name that would get their child more teased then “Tidy Bowl” would. Well, maybe “Tampax” might make things a little harder for Junior.
My favorite part is at the end:
“That’s right son, we pimped out your name, one of the most basic ways of identifying you, like it was a two-dollar crack whore, but just remember how much we love you, you Unique Snowflake, you.”
Shit, we were talking about that on Customer’s Suck!
Maybe we could get the Chicago Reader to put in a bid to name him Cecil Adams!
Oh hell, folks, stadium names are nothing–does anyone really doubt the teamnames will eventually be sold? Consider a Super Bowl between the New York Life Giants and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Steelers. Eventually the geographical locations will go completely–the World Series will between the National League Champion Tampax and the American League Champion Kotex…both of whom will wear blue uniforms.
A bit “ironic”, since the Steelers already have the US Steel logo. Sorry for the pun. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
- Rob
Just a few years back US Air was in financial difficulties and it was rumored here in DC they might be forced to drop their sponsorship of USAIR ARENA… It was further rumored that MacDonald’s was interested in taking over and so the stadium would become the MACARENA (yes, it was that summer when the macarena was all the rage, thank goodness it’s over and forgotten)
This kid whose name is being sold - is there anything stopping him changing his name? Is that not his legal entitlement?
In which case that half a million would hardly be well spent, eh?
pan