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September 17, 2008
Sell the Naming Rights and You May Sell Much More
The NY Times
After the Allianz naming-rights deal for the Jets-Giants Stadium fell through, Times columnist Clyde Haberman ponders the cringe-factor of other deals, including the mystifying deal between Bruce Ratner, who has been courting Brooklyn's African-American community, and Barclays Bank, which still hasn't outrun its past:
The dollar-fueled passion to sell one’s name (and reputation) to the highest bidder has landed more than one enterprise in hot water. At the least, it has led some to come under unwelcome scrutiny.
After the Enron debacle, the Houston Astros decided that it wasn’t wise to play baseball in a place called Enron Field. Their playground is now called Minute Maid Park, Minute Maid being a division of the Coca-Cola Company — no model of purity itself, having paid tens of millions of dollars to make charges of racial and gender bias go away.
Closer to home, the planned arena in Brooklyn for the Nets basketball team will bear the name of the British bank Barclays. The bank has had to fend off charges, which it calls untrue, that it has historic roots in the slave trade. Of themselves, the allegations may be heavy baggage for a company to carry into Brooklyn, with its huge African-American population.
For $20 million a year, Citigroup bought the naming rights to the Mets’ new stadium in Queens, Citi Field. Citibank, a division of Citigroup, cannot claim to have always had clean hands. As recently as 11 years ago, a federal government report said that blacks applying for home mortgage loans at Citibank were three times more likely to be rejected than whites, often even when incomes were comparable. Of 12 banks studied, Citibank ranked the worst in this regard.
Posted by lumi at September 17, 2008 6:08 AM