".....It isn’t the Piggly Wiggly Madison Square Garden.." Mets Go For Corporate Naming Bucks
Add New York to the long list of places that has bowed to the altar of corporate naming right of a stadium, excuse me ball park.
A new stadium to be built next to Shea Stadium is being modeled to recall the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. But it's corporate name reflects a present reality: Citi Field. (Shea Stadium was named after the man who brought baseball back to NYC after the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants abandoned town).
As George Vecsey wrote in the New York Times, "....Gone are the days of naming ballparks after sports heroes or teams or even the owners themselves. In recent years, many stadiums have been named after companies that I could not identify. Some of the companies went belly up. There may or may not be a moral to this...."
Added Clyde Haberman in the Metro Section (not in the Sports Pages), "...Putting up money without receiving a billboard in return is an alien concept in corporate America today. You don’t like it? Well, get real, said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg..."
Writes Vecsey,"...The mayor is not wrong. But New York has always been different. It isn’t the Piggly Wiggly Madison Square Garden, not yet, or the Wal-Mart Yankee Stadium. In fact, when the Yankees broke ground for their own joint last August, their officials emphasized that the new ballpark would be called Yankee Stadium..."
Am I making too much of this ? Perhaps, but to me it is yet another step along the journey separating me from the game(s) I once felt so connected to. Cable TV, corporate boxes, multi-million dollars contracts, strikes/lock-outs, steroids, corporate names to ball parks. Did I tell what I think about the new Yankee Stadium - where construction in the Bronx has already taken away a park from its neighbors. As Vecsey states in The Times,"....Allegedly, the city will install park fragments on top of parking garages when the construction is over....". Please, don't get me started.
See:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/sports/baseball/14vecsey.html
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/nyregion/14nyc.html
A new stadium to be built next to Shea Stadium is being modeled to recall the old Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. But it's corporate name reflects a present reality: Citi Field. (Shea Stadium was named after the man who brought baseball back to NYC after the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants abandoned town).
As George Vecsey wrote in the New York Times, "....Gone are the days of naming ballparks after sports heroes or teams or even the owners themselves. In recent years, many stadiums have been named after companies that I could not identify. Some of the companies went belly up. There may or may not be a moral to this...."
Added Clyde Haberman in the Metro Section (not in the Sports Pages), "...Putting up money without receiving a billboard in return is an alien concept in corporate America today. You don’t like it? Well, get real, said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg..."
Writes Vecsey,"...The mayor is not wrong. But New York has always been different. It isn’t the Piggly Wiggly Madison Square Garden, not yet, or the Wal-Mart Yankee Stadium. In fact, when the Yankees broke ground for their own joint last August, their officials emphasized that the new ballpark would be called Yankee Stadium..."
Am I making too much of this ? Perhaps, but to me it is yet another step along the journey separating me from the game(s) I once felt so connected to. Cable TV, corporate boxes, multi-million dollars contracts, strikes/lock-outs, steroids, corporate names to ball parks. Did I tell what I think about the new Yankee Stadium - where construction in the Bronx has already taken away a park from its neighbors. As Vecsey states in The Times,"....Allegedly, the city will install park fragments on top of parking garages when the construction is over....". Please, don't get me started.
See:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/sports/baseball/14vecsey.html
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/nyregion/14nyc.html
posted by eric model | 1:29 PM
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