I read also that CitiBank, AIG and others who are receiving federal bailout money say they have no plans to stop their multimillion dollar/year sports sponsorships. cite
There’s a whole lot of issues at play here: PR, business-as-usual, the connections between sports, business and media…
My take on it is: your ideas and business models are FAIL. Stop all bullshit that has nothing to do with the business you’re in and find a way to make your shit work. Or gtfo of the way for someone else to take a shot at it.
Not likely to happen, I know, but that’s my $.02 on it.
As a Mets fan, I think both names suck. But I guess that’s not really the question.
However, I do think Citibank, AIG, etc, etc need to stop all of this stadium nonsense and get back to their core business. Stadium advertising has always been a prestige thing and should never take up that big a chunk of the advertising (or overall) budget.
I understand that these companies are now being propped up by the government, but there are 3 things at issue here:
When the agreement was struck Citibank wasn’t in trouble,
$20 million a year isn’t a whole hell of a lot of money for what amounts to broad-based advertising, which does attract customers, who in turn bring money, and
The economy will recover, regulations will be put in place (though surely not all of them will be good ones), and life will go on. 5 years from now you won’t even remember how upset you were about this.
$20 million a year is nothing for advertising, and given that the stadium name will be mentioned 20 times a game, 81 times a year, plus ancillary events and name identification as the Mets’ home field in the offseason, plus all of the discussion that mentions the name of the field during everyday discussion, Citibank (and us) are getting a steal.
To me it’s like clipping coupons. Saving .40 here, .25 there… a quarter isn’t much money, after all. But if your family is strapped, you clip the coupons and if you clip enough, you can save a substantial amount.
Or if you stop buying the brand name and go with store brand. There’s lots of ways to save money, and firings/layoffs/wage reduction shouldn’t be the only options. Trim fat wherever you see it, when necessary, IMO. Not that I see any indication that any of these companies is actually trimming any fat, mind you.
Kind of funny, but ultimately it’s silly grandstanding. And I say that as somebody who really dislikes corporate naming of stadiums because I think it robs them of personality. Taxpayers are not paying for the naming rights here, and the $20 million would be pretty meaningless to Citi.
It’s a little like the congressman who asked the Big 3 auto execs if they were planning to sell their private jets - it was a question that made the CEOs look bad but had zero to do with any consequential issues. It was about looking good for the cameras before they make the inevitable and unpopular move to bail the companies out.
The Angels Used to play at Edison International Field under a 20 year naming agreement. When the energy crisis struck California and Southern California Edison amost declared bankruptcy, their parent company Edison International made an agreement with the Angels to cancel the contract.
If $20M were meaningless to Citibank, they would not need taxpayer money.
Having spent my life in big Fortune 500 sized corporations, I can tell you that I’ve never done a project where I’ve asked for anything over $100,000 and had someone say “oh, that amount of money is meaningless - do what you want.” The process to get a $1M project funded is brutal. Citibank almost certainly finds $20M meaningful…and I know that as tax support at a federal level to localities is cut for things like school funding, I find $20M meaningful.
To me, this is a little like someone living in subsidized housing or foodstamps and medicare buying a Wii. $250 for a Wii really isn’t a substantial amount of money in the grand scheme of things - a drop in the bucket when you look at the families total benefit package - but there are plenty of struggling families not getting help with their groceries and housing who don’t have Wiis.
That’s a fair point. And I do support some of those public penance things, like reduced executive pay. But the way I see it, the important thing is the performance of Citi and of the financial market. Whether they spend $20 million to get their name on the stadium doesn’t make a dent in the issues that put them in this position.
Yeah half a billion dollars is not inconsequential. I think it should be renamed Citi/Taxpayer field, because on top of that the city of New York shelled out to help build the stadium as well.
No more than not understanding that $250 you don’t have for a Wii makes a dent in getting a family off public assistance. Its having a basic understanding of what a budget is. What savings means. And why you should set aside money for a rainy day - even if you are a bank.
There is a level of individual/corporate responsibility at play. Responsible people don’t say “well, based off the bonus I got this year and the raise I expect to get next year, I can buy a BMW and take out an eight year loan on it.” Because responsible people understand a lot can happen over eight years that make that luxury commitment in their budget a burden. Unfortunately, both individuals and businesses have been irresponsible, and we are all going to pay out the ears for it. If you own a nice BMW and need public assistance in order to keep the lights on - maybe its time to sell the BMW.
Granted, Citi does not need to spend this $20 million to make money, so if they decide to drop the deal in the face of public outcry I won’t complain. But this spending is not very consequential for a company that takes in tens of billions of dollars a year. If you think they’ll be losing this kind of money and accepting a bailout every year, yes, the $20 million per year becomes a large item. But if that’s the case they won’t be in business very long anyway.
As most cities do for stadiums these days. That’s also a crock, even if it’s a separate issue.
It’s really not a good idea for the government to micromanage the companies it’s propping up. I mean, it’s not a good idea for government to prop up companies, but that boat appears to have sailed. Given that Citibank is partly taxpayer funded, it’s still not a good idea to micromanage it.
Look, has anyone in this thread done a detailed study of Citi’s brand management, and how the stadium name fits into that plan? Do any of the politicians rattling their checkbooks know how many customers Citi can expect to bring in due to the extra name recognition they’ll receive, or how much a new customer is worth on average?
Advertising costs money. Advertising in a really big way costs a lot of money. But just because something costs money doesn’t mean it wastes money. Yeah, $20 million a year is a lot of money. But it’s probably a drop in the bucket compared to Citi’s annual advertising budget. If you’re against this, are you saying that Citi shouldn’t be allowed to advertise at all? Or is it just that this particular plan, on the surface, seems ostentatious?
Now, you can argue that the management of Citibank has so totally lost their way that every decision they make should be immediately suspect, but if that’s the case, we should just let them fail, not prop them up and insist upon second-guessing every decision they make.
The fact that New York paid a bunch of money to build the stadium is not relevant to this conversation. It was a dumb idea, sure, but if they wanted to be involved in the naming, they could have written that into the original agreement. The fact that they’re probably getting screwed in the long run by dumping taxpayer money into the pockets of major league sports entities sucks, but it’s hardly unique.
Since taxpayers have an investment in many stadiums, I don’t think it is appropriate for one park. I think the whole idea of corporate naming rights sucks big time. Call it Mets Stadium or Stengel Park or something.
But how much is it compared to the bailout money they are getting?
Most cities have to give inducements to get the teams to stay in New York. New York doesn’t. If they want to take the Mets fuck 'em. It’s not like anyone’s going to move the Yankees, and we paid for that stadium too. Sports brands are some of the only brands that are still geographically bound. Just ask the Arizona Cardinals and the Baltimore Browns. Let for profit corporations pay for their own revenue. I’m pretty pissed off that taxpayers paid to build a Yankee stadium that had fewer and more expensive seats. We paid for the privilege of not being able to afford to go to a game.
I’m sure they’re getting screwed and I wish municipalities would stop doing this. Unfortunately, now that so many cities have already caved on this issue, teams can demand their home markets fall in line or they’ll take their business elsewhere. So that’s probably not going to go away any time soon.