More on Naming Rights Deals and Candlestick: Several readers have called me out on my harsh discounting of the importance of a stadium name. This reader said it best:

Your comment: And is anyone really that attached to the name "Candlestick Park?" really hit me hard. As a native Bay Area guy who has now lived in NC and MO since 1991, I still will ONLY refer to Candlestick as Candlestick. Not 3Com, not Monster. Not anything else. Can you imagine naming Lambeau or Cameron or Fenway with a corporate moniker? The passion of local fans can be irrational at times. The history of sports-related ballot initiatives in San Francisco could be a law course just by itself.

These readers have helped me to see the error of my ways -- stadium names can be very important to fans and to the identity of a team. Not being from the West Coast, I did not put Candlestick in the Fenway or Wrigley or Lambeau category, but I can see how loyal fans would.



But, the reality of sports seems to be moving towards a replacement of "traditional" stadium names with the names of corporations that will pony up large amounts of money. In today's economies of sport, this may be unavoidable. Moreover, if the increasing tide of players' salaries is not stemmed, many other things could be up for sale, including logos on uniforms, and even team names. Imagine how much a team could make for selling off its nickname. Think the Detroit Chevys. Or the Miami Blockbusters. Maybe the San Francisco Yahoos? This is not outside the realm of possibility.



Hockey is now facing the ugliness that comes when economics in a sport are allowed to spiral out of control. Gary Bettman has now said that the season may be lost because most teams are losing less money this season by not playing any games. Hockey was done in by a lack of the television revenue advertising dollars that keep the other major sports afloat. But, in any sport, the amount of advertising revenue is finite. Even in NASCAR, a sport that sponsors everything, this is quickly becoming reality, as the tension grows between companies sponsoring drivers and their rival companies sponsoring the league. In order to make ends meet, will teams result to selling off team names? Maybe, but it cannot last forever. And soon, the other major sports will have to face up to the reality of hockey: the sponsorship market is not infinite, and thus, players salaries also cannot be.



For now, though, we are stuck with corporate sponsorships in at least some realms. But this does not mean that people have to like it. Fans are right to cherish names like Candlestick and if I had been in San Francisco, I too would have voted to protect the name.

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