For perhaps $3-6 million annually over the next 21 years, the Kansas City Royals reportedly are willing to sell out their founder, the late Ewing Kauffman, and rename their ballpark after a bank. Or maybe they’ll just marginalize Kauffman a little bit and call the place “Whichever Bank Field at Kauffman Stadium.”
...KHSB-TV, the NBC station in K.C., reports that the Royals home park might go corporate as soon as Monday:
Sources close to the Royals say the corporation is a bank but they would not confirm which one.
However, it is worth noting that the chairman of the board of Arkansas based Arvest Bank is the son of the late Sam Walton of the Walmart family.
Royals owner David Glass is the former CEO of Walmart.
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1. Bob Tufts Posted: November 07, 2011 at 02:18 PM (#3987792)To name the stadium for some corporate entity - that's sad. To name it after a bank in Arkansas is depressing.
Well this is a great lesson for those small business owners on how to marginally increase income while pissing off your customers.
I get the sentimentality, but every one of their AL Central competitors has sold naming rights to their stadiums. It's a sign o' the times.
Yay!
Wait, what?
I wonder what the IRS would say if I said that my entire income has reverted to U.S. taxpayers, and is going towards keeping me in the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed, so I don't owe anything.
Tell that to the media. It took them about 30 seconds to start calling Candlestick "3 Com" after that first atrocity was announced. They acted as if they were afraid of the Giants keeping them out of the press box or something, and this wasn't just the team broadcasters---it was every newspaper and radio station.
It's still the SkyDome to me. Though that has more to do with my inability to handle change than any protest against commercialization.
I would guess it's U.S. Bank (largest bank in Missouri, 6th largest in Kansas), or else a smaller local institution.
Though it's still SkyDome to me.
On a certain level I think it makes sense for companies. I don't entirely know what Comerica, PETCO, or SAFECO are. But thanks to naming rights I now know they are something. Which I guess is a goal of advertising.
Comerica is a bank, PETCO is a pet supplies store, and Safeco is an insurance company.
You'd be surprised how quickly that wears off. I seem to recall some White Sox fans claiming they would never stop calling their ballpark Comiskey, but nowadays pretty much everyone calls it US Cellular Field (or The Cell).
Maybe, but I don't buy it. So sure, you know those names, but since you don't know what they are, clearly the advertising isn't turning into dollars.
Ad folks talk up a good story about brand identity, but I'd love to see an actual study that demonstrates a real ROI for stadium naming. Personally I think it's got a lot more to do with the ego of executives than anything else.
I mean...AT&T Park. Are there actually people in the US who have not heard of AT&T? Really?
Well, in that case, AT&T didn't buy the naming rights, Pacific Bell did. Pac Bell was then bought out by SBC, which later merged with AT&T.
Technically, SBC acquired AT&T and renamed itself AT&T. :)
I'd argue that (A) when Pac Bell was still a thing, every human being within its territory knew what it was, and (B) ditto for SBC.
I'd further argue that the millions spent on naming rights could more effectively be spent on other advertising/marketing with an actual call to action, etc., that has a much better chance of turning into actual revenue.
EDIT: also, #23 is awesome.
This has been studied -- I want to say deMause in reference to the multiple Joe Robbie Stadium renames -- and the conclusion is the first corporate name is the one that has the only chance to have a business impact. And it has to be linked to the opening of the stadium as early as possible. If the rename is in last of a long line of renames, or if it comes long after an established non-corporate name, the business impact ("bang for the buck") gets measurably smaller.
By this measure, Comerica, Safeco, Target, PETCO are good corporate names for stadiums. The Cell, not as good. O.co, Minute Maid, AT&T, Landshark are even worse.
So, I'd say the ad folk and the Royals are snookering the corporate client here. It's basically $3-6 million of free money per year they can use to water the grass or improve the suites, while not pissing off the fans. (Free money to them, not free to the doofuses who bank with US Bank and indirectly fund US Bank's egotism.)
Wait, isn't PETCO a(n) (in)famous BTF thread?
It's a pet store AND an infamous BTF thread!
If OBP is so important, why didn't they name the stadium after it?
But Petsmart is a much better name. Is it Pets' Mart or Pet Smart. Works either way.
The fans, pretty much. The media jumped on the corporate train, though. I seem to recall that some individuals resisted and were told by their employers to use the corporate name if they wanted to keep their jobs.
The corporate name itself was (is) a compromise, though -- "Invesco Field at Mile High," now "Sports Authority Field at Mile High."
I wonder why so many companies in fields that have constant mergers and other name-changing situations spend so much money on building up name brands that soon become defunct.
Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez is done apparently.
In what is nothing short of a miracle, the Dodgers seemed to have gone through hands of FOX and Frank McCourt with the 'Dodger Stadium' name still intact.
And somehow Liberty hasn't cashed out Ted Turner yet. I'm surprised they haven't jumped on that.
The Rangers sold out to Ameriquest Mortgage a few years back ("Bad Credit Ballpark") complete with replacing the seats in one OF section with their giant bell that rang when a Ranger homered. The deal didn't last too long though as Ameriquest backed out when they went under, and it's been Rangers Ballpark since.
It is Petsm Art.
I wonder why so many companies in fields that have constant mergers and other name-changing situations spend so much money on building up name brands that soon become defunct.
Higher asking price, natch.
The Yankees have a corporate name, their own.
And shouldn't the Cubs try to squeeze some money out the namesake, who can tell that the stadium was named after the family and not the chewing gum?
Why would an acquiring bank pay more for a brand name that they are immediately going to kill and never use? E.G. Does Bank of America get any benefit out of the fact that Fleet used to be the name of an arena?
That I am!
In what is nothing short of a miracle, the Dodgers seemed to have gone through hands of FOX and Frank McCourt with the 'Dodger Stadium' name still intact.
And somehow Liberty hasn't cashed out Ted Turner yet. I'm surprised they haven't jumped on that.
Busch Stadium** and Miller Park are in the same category as Wrigley: Ballparks named after corporations that in turn were named for their founders. These don't seem offensive to the ear, since they were both household names to begin with, easily remembered, and not foreign to the ear like "PNC" or "QualComm".
**Which falls into this category only because Gussie Busch's request to rename Sportsman's Park "Budweiser Stadium" was turned down by the other owners.
Ummmm, Wrigley? Chewing gum?
Edit: Coke to Andy.
Wonder if Wrigley pays anything to keep the name?
Back on Craig Calcaterra's old Shysterball blog, someone in the comments section came up with a beautiful suggestion when it was rumored that the Cubs were looking at naming rights being sold for Wrigley Field.
This person said that if he were in charge of Wrigley Gum, he'd do the following:
* Launch an ad campaign for a new, special edition gum. (Could easily be an existing gum with new packaging.) Call it the "Wrigley Field" edition.
* Pledge that all profits from the gum would go toward purchasing the naming rights for Wrigley Field. (To be clear, that's true profit, so you wouldn't lose a dime.)
* Pledge that the company would further MATCH these profits, penny for penny, for purchasing said rights.
You effectively get the naming rights for half off, you generate a ####-ton of publicity (all positive), you engender all sorts of goodwill from Cub fans everywhere, and you even get a bunch of people to try your gum who otherwise might not have.
Can't remember who suggested this, but to me, the idea is ####### genius.
They do not.
EDIT: presumably because it is, in fact, a bit different from Miller (though not necessarily Busch): the field was named after the owner/family. That the owner also had an eponymous corporation to pimp was mostly happenstance.
The A-B brand "Busch" dates back only to 1955 and was created after Busch bought Sportsman's Park from the Browns. Apparently Gussie Busch figured that if he couldn't name the park after Budweiser he would do the next best thing, start a new brand and name the park after that. For what it's worth I come from a long line of Cardinals' fans and the old ball park in St. Louis was always referred to by my father/uncles/etc. as "Sportsman's Park", not "Busch Stadium", despite the best efforts of the Cardinals' marketing department.
Should have called the beer "Sportsman's" instead.
Sportsman's Park was already officially named Busch Stadium by the time the 1954 Baseball Guide was issued in March, so that little song-and-dance with Frick must have been germinating in Gussie's mind for at least a full year before the "Busch Bavarian" brand was introduced in 1955.
It's also notable that both BB-Almanac and Wiki say that the 1957 All-Star game was played in Sportsman's Park, whereas the 1958 Baseball Guide and all other Sporting News publications say that it was played in Busch Stadium. Call it the oral tradition vs. The Bible of Baseball, in what essentially amounts to a quasi-theological dispute.
On the other hand, the local arena has gone through three names and everybody adapted. I guess it just depends.
Not because I have an opinion on the subject, just for the drama.
I suggest 'Jersey St'
I suggest 'Jersey St'
Or "Howard Bryant Boulevard"
It's Pet SM Art, doofus. I'd link to some examples of their work, but the nanny won't let me...
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