The first stadium to grant naming rights happened 49 years ago when Anheuser Busch renamed Sportsman Park in St. Louis “Busch Stadium” for an unspecified sum of money This began the seismic shift in turning stadiums with colloquial names into billboards for corporations. Ford Frick, who was initially against the idea of naming a stadium for an alcoholic beverage manufacturer, soon overcame his prejudice and allowed the naming to go through. Who knows what Commissioner Frick got in return.
The revenue generated by naming rights has rung into the hundreds of millions of dollars. While it took a little time to get used to their new names, hardly anyone really cares about the name their favorite team plays ball in except those corporations who invested money into their branding strategies.
I would say the technique worked for all parties involved. The naming rights of the sports model has proven itself in the ensuing years. Success is hard to argue with. The exception to these corporate-owned rights are few but very historied. Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium in baseball are the holdouts. However, the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers are large, privately held corporations themselves and evidently they can brand themselves without needing additional corporate support.
But lets extrapolate this sports model into another realm of naming rights. What if a corporation wanted to buy the naming rights to the city in which they were located? It sounds preposterous, I know. Is it against the law? Is it that far fetched? Could it ever happen?
Isn’t it feasible that selling the naming rights to a city for a specified term could help that city offset falling revenues instead of looking to increase sin taxes, property taxes or corporate welfare tax deferments? I made this suggestion in all seriousness to ex-Hartford mayor Eddie Perez in an effort to help Hartford generate more income a few years ago. It went completely over his head and he started laughing at me. Maybe the time has come to look into this more seriously.
If a large corporation wanted to rename Hartford, Connecticut for 10 years for $750 million dollars, many improvements could be made to the city without raising taxes. Let’s say that The Hartford Insurance Company was the title sponsor and instead of Hartford, Connecticut, we had The Hartford, Connecticut, how terribl would that be? Maybe Travelers Insurance Company would raise the amount to a billion dollars to name the city Travelers, Connecticut.
It would sound funny at first but much like stadium re-naming, people will soon grow accustomed to it. And much like the sports model, everyone would win,
How do we proceed with this? Legal minds would first need to do their homework to find precedence or pitfalls to the scheme. The judicial system would need to make a ruling and the city council would need to vote on it.
The pioneer cities would get lots of press on it, tourism might increase and maybe other business’ would want to relocate because of lower taxes. The larger, historic cities, much like their baseball counterparts, would probably not need to join in the renaming scheme. New York would never change its name but do they really have to? Same with our larger cities.
Detroit needs to do this yesterday to stave off bankruptcy. The city is named for a river that probably no longer has much capitol with its inhabitants. If it became General Motors, Michigan or Chevrolet, Michigan it would make so much more sense and help the city get out of debt. Who would really care after a few years if the taxes went down and services increased?
Taking it a step further, an entire state like Arkansas could sell its naming rights to Walmart. Then the towns and cities could imitate the different departments of a Walmart i.e. Housewares, Automotive, and Checkout! That could totally conform to a future that means something to the residents.
This isn’t a silly Ayn Rand concept to solidify a future where corporations rule the country. This is a practical solution that has worked in other arenas and could help our struggling cities to get corporations to actually pay something back to their hometowns instead of sheltering their taxes overseas.
Which party wants to embrace this and be the heroes?
Pops O'Maxfield's Blog 