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Naming Rights


BILLS02138

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Gregg Easterbrook talked about this topic in one of his TMQ columns a while back.

 

Here's a snippet:

 

True, only Buffalo has a stadium named for its current owner. The new crowd of max-marketing owners such as Robert McNair and Daniel Snyder have a point when they note Wilson wants them to share the wealth in part so that he can keep his stadium named after himself; while if Snyder or McNair named their teams' fields after themselves, they would be accused of egotism. The point that can be made in Wilson's corner involves succession. Wilson may leave the team to his wife Mary, engaging no estate tax, or to his daughters, which would involve them borrowing to pay the estate tax. In either case, if the franchise stays in the family, Mary or the daughters would be deeply hesitant to move the team away from a stadium named for Ralph. Whereas if the place were named Call Now for Papa John's Spicy Buffalo Wings Stadium, there would be no sentimental attachment and new Bills management might say, "Los Angeles, here we come." Ralph Wilson choose the stadium name in part to increase the odds the Bills remain in Buffalo after his death, a point that isn't widely known.

 

Yours truly loves (and slightly knows) Ralph Wilson, but lobbied for the Orchard Park facility to be named Robert Kalsu Field. The sole American professional athlete who died in uniform during the Vietnam War, Kalsu voluntarily left the Bills in order to serve his country, surrendering an exemption. Whatever you thought of the Vietnam War, there is no higher patriotism than to serve voluntarily from the sense of duty, not owing to conscription. Though I wish the Bills' facility were named for Kalsu, the fieldhouse adjoining Wilson Stadium is now Robert Kalsu Fieldhouse, and a statue at the stadium stands in his honor. That's pretty good when you take into account that Kalsu died before the 24-7 cable era -- 99 percent of those who follow sports have never so much as heard his name. Which brings us to the question of a man whose name definitely has been heard. The new football facility rising in Glendale, Ariz., has the working designation Cardinals Stadium. If on dedication day its name is not Pat Tillman Field, the Cardinals franchise, and the whole National Football League, should be ashamed.

 

Here's a link.

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