Jim Morris's Thought of the Week (or month, or year, ...)
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Your Name Here, Pennsylvania
Pittsburghers are grousing that their Mellon Arena will soon be called “The Bank of New York Arena,” which would make this the first name change for a Pittsburgh sports venue. They would prefer it be torn down. They should get over it.
Last week I drove past Oakland’s newly renamed McAfee Coliseum and Oracle Arena. Oakland is a model of stability compared to San Francisco, which should use the electronic traffic signs to name its two parks: PacTel/SBC/AT&T and Candlestick/3Com/Monster, so that it can more easily update the parks’ frequent name changes.
The days of naming things permanently after civic-minded people or activities are over. Cities are going bankrupt while corporations are thriving. Corporations can afford to buy naming rights for whatever they want. Clark, Texas renamed itself DISH permanently in return for EchoStar giving it free television for ten years. Pittsburgh, which unfairly has a bad image, should happily rename itself Heinz in return for a bail out. How much would Mountain View like for becoming Google, California?
posted by Jim Morris @ 11:02 AM
0 Comments:
Previous Posts
