March 03, 2008
Naming Rights
I don't quite understand the controversy over selling naming rights to Wrigley Field. It's not like in San Diego they were honoring a local citizen who helped bring baseball to the town. Wrigley Field is a corporate sponsorship that doesn't pay squat to the Cubs. It's like switching Enron to Minute Maid.
If fans don't like the new name, just keep calling it Wrigley Field. Only announcers will get in trouble for calling it anything else.
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Posted by David Pinto at
08:15 AM
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To be fair, any ol' idea + time = tradition. In Chicago, that's how we've come to love the notion that a Picasso statue of some kind of dog-faced boy is a Chicago icon despite not being iconically Chicago.
However, isn't the name "Wrigley Field" more of a hubristic name from the Wrigley family than a straightforward marketing scheme? There hasn't been a Wrigley ad in the park since 1937; the team wouldn't be sold for another 40 years. That's no way to handle a brand.
Dead on, DP. Jim Rome's rant on Friday was childish and amusing in all the wrong ways. Far easier to make an issue of Shea to Citi than Wrigley to XYZ. If anyone thinks they can back Sam Zell into a corner they are sadly mistaken.
Much as I don't care about what they name that dump, Blair Kamin (the architecture critic for the Tribune) has a very good essay today on what the possible weakening of Wrigley's landmark status to accommodate a name change would mean for other protected buildings in Chicago.
It would be like changing the Citgo sign in Boston. Not gonna happen.
I fear adverisements on MLB uniforms are right around the corner.
I still don't see whats wrong with naming rights. Despite our best wishes, MLB is still a business, thus, the clubs are looking to make the most money possible. So if a sponsor wants to shell out millions of dollars a year to have their logos and name plastered all over a building, so be it. The alternative, increased ticket prices.