Dan's Papers - October 10, 2008

One of the biggest problems created by the collapse of some of this country's biggest businesses is stadium names.

Just in the last week, for example, the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, where the 76ers and the Flyers play, has become a problem. Wachovia, the sixth largest bank in America, was swallowed up by CitiCorp. (Or maybe Wells Fargo.) The name Wachovia no longer exists.

Meanwhile, the same problem is on the table at the WaMu Theatre in Madison Square Garden. Washington Mutual Savings Bank is now part of the Bank of America.

What to do? Take the letters on the wall down and put up BofA and CitiCorp? Leave them up and hope they return?

Here in the Hamptons, many of our cultural institutions have already been hit big time by these corporate naming problems. Guild Hall was in the process of renaming its John Drew Theatre the Fannie Mae Theatre. The Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center (what a mouthful that was) was to become the Lehman Brothers Center. Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor was going to become the AIG Theatre and in Southampton, the Parrish Art Museum was about to be renamed the Merrill Lynch Museum. Serious money - tens of millions of dollars - had already been paid. (The checks bounced.) The big bronze or stainless steel letters had already been made up. (They have now been set aside to see if, in the future, they can be used by some new firm with the same letters, but in a different order.) The workmen with their long aluminum ladders had been hired. Now all will have to stand down.

Up until about 10 years ago, the names of stadiums were never put up for sale. They were named, instead, for who played or performed there. Or they were named after prominent people in government that everyone wanted to remember. Or for the place where they were built.

Yankee Stadium was Yankee Stadium. Fenway Park was Fenway Park. Giant Stadium was Giant Stadium. Who was Ebbetts? I did not know. And who was Shea? I am still not sure I know. But anyway, you could count on those things.

But then, the owners of these stadiums decided that they could make big bucks by selling the naming rights to their properties. So you got the Ameriquest Stadium for the Texas Rangers football team, Enron Field in Houston, Fleet Garden in Boston, PSInet Stadium in Baltimore and the Great American Bank and the Adelphia Coliseum for the Tennessee Titans, all gone to a new name because every one of those companies either got swallowed up or went under - and the chairman of Adelphia even went to jail.

Many stadiums even became serial bankrupters. In San Francisco, the ballpark where the baseball Giants play was first named PacBell Stadium, which went under, then SBC Stadium, which went under, and is now AT&T Stadium, with everybody's fingers crossed. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the football Giants, which took over what was formerly called Candlestick Park, first named it 3Com Stadium, and when they went under named it Monster Stadium (after Monster Cable TV, not monster.com) and though that company has survived, actually both companies, the stadium owners have decided, nevertheless, that next year when the Monster contract expires, they will return to using the original name Candlestick Park to prevent future catastrophes. Cincinnati had Star Bank Arena, which became First Star Center, which became USBank Arena. And who knows what it will be after that. And the Baltimore Ravens football team played first in PSInet Stadium, which went under, then Cogent Stadium and now MFT Bank Stadium, all of which, of course, refer to the exact same place.

It only goes to show you how fleeting everything with businesses can be. Hadn't anybody noticed what the consequences might have been if a stadium had been named for Caldor or Plymouth or Oldsmobile or Netscape or TWA? Ever hear of the Betamax Theatre?

One particular transaction that has gone by the wayside during this downturn has been the attempt to rename the Atlantic Ocean. I can't tell you who the principals were in this transaction, not only because it has been all hush hush, but because the amounts involved had been staggering, as you might imagine, but if you try to say the words "Google Ocean" fast, you could get a rough idea of what this was all about. But don't tell anybody I told you that.

But they never stop. At the present time, we can expect to see the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn for the New York Nets basketball team. And we will see Citi Field out in Queens as the new stadium for the New York Mets. Both involve payments that could be as much as $400 million over 10 years.

Meanwhile, the name of the German insurance company Allianz will NOT be over the entryway of the new Giants-Jets Stadium in the Meadowlands when it opens in 2012. Allianz might have had $400 million to part with, but it turns out that, years ago, this firm had close ties with the Nazi regime. So that plan, three weeks ago, was abandoned (which might have saved them from bankruptcy).

How far the Mighty have fallen. Although, it is my belief that anything named after Babe Ruth, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Thomas Edison, Joe DiMaggio, Attila the Hun, Socrates or Vince Lombardi is probably gonna be around for a long time.

Well, speaking on behalf of the next level down, which includes the Walt Whitman Center in Huntington, the Shinnecock Golf Club in Southampton, the William Floyd Parkway in Medford, the Teddy Roosevelt County Park in Montauk, the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, Louse Point Beach in the Springs and the United States of America on the planet Earth, what I say is, what goes around comes around. So watch out.