What's in a Name? At U.S. Ballparks, Big Bucks
By Adam Tanner
Reuters, June 23, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - For sports fans, music lovers and even Roman Catholics, these are hallowed grounds.

At Candlestick Park, the Beatles played their last concert. Baseball legend Willie Mays set National League records and Pope John Paul II preached a mass to the faithful.

For all the memories, the 43-year-old stadium is a lonely place these days. The Giants baseball team, unhappy for decades about bitter winds that played havoc with the game, moved out in 1999. The 49ers football team plays just 10 games a year. Rock bands rarely power up their amplifiers here.

San Francisco, which owns the stadium, has recently tried to drum up interest in the graying concrete structure and sell its naming rights to help shore up depleted city coffers. Estimated price tag: $1 million a year, which the city will share with the 49ers.

The Board of Supervisors, the city's legislative branch, is due to review the issue next month. If they approve it, efforts to sell the name would begin in earnest.

Selling the stadium name, now commonplace in American sports, is as passionately debated as any sports contest. Traditionalists say auctioning the name to the highest bidder tarnishes sports.

Former Giant Willie McCovey, one of the greatest baseball home-run hitters of all time, sees no reason to change the name Candlestick. "I'd like to see it preserved, the name behind it and its history," he told Reuters.

Yet the ball park is surprisingly free of nostalgia that could help patch up its weathered look.

There are no reminders that an era of Beatlemania ended here in 1966 or that Vice President Richard Nixon threw out the first ball ever on April 12, 1960.

Only a few private offices inside include mementos of Willie Mays, who in 1966 set what was then the National League record for career home runs there. The pitcher blown off the mound by wind in 1963 is just a footnote in history books.

The 1989 earthquake that interrupted the World Series is alive only in the memories of fans.

"When the Giants left, it was like the tenant that left in the middle of the night and ripped all the stuff off the walls," said Donald Cavallero, an engineer on Candlestick's staff of 10.

There is a stadium plaque to football star O.J. Simpson, but it avoid mention of his trial on double-murder charges.

A NAMING CURSE?

Supporters of naming rights deals call them easy money.

"Naming rights have been part of the revenue forces that have come to the stadium for a number of years," said Elizabeth Goldstein, San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department manager. "Given the department's overall fiscal situation, obviously the loss of those revenues is significant."

Hanging a shingle on the stadium door can be costly.

At the top of the list nationwide, energy company Reliant Resources Inc pays $10 million year to name sports facilities in Houston.

Yet a large number of companies have suffered a curse after casting their names in sports lights and some have gone bankrupt, including United Airlines >, WorldCom and PSINet .

In the most notorious deal, energy firm Enron signed a $100 million, 30-year deal to name the Houston Astros baseball stadium. When the company fell into disgrace, the team carried a daunting albatross and bought back the rights.

"Naming rights deals have actually driven away attendance," Paul Swangard, managing director of the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, said. "There were fans who were saying, 'I will not go to the game."'

NAME GAME

For $900,000 a year, San Francisco sold Candlestick's name in 1995, re-christening the stadium 3Com Park.

3Com's contract ended last year, and the high-tech company is considered to be more interested in conserving its cash than trying to extend the deal.

Disdainful of the commercialism of such deals, the Board of Supervisors also nixed a renaming offer from Sony that would have brought in $1 million a year.

"The victory in San Francisco last year was huge. Candlestick was the first pro stadium to return to its popular name," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a group opposed to excessive commercial advertising. "It showed the tremendous hatred that sports fans have for these naming rights deals."

Local officials acknowledge the naming rights market has since weakened. Yet a budget deficit makes it more important than ever and they say opponents should not make too much fuss about what are commercial if beloved sports games anyway.

"A rose by any other name is still a rose and I don't think this really changes things," parks official Goldstein said.