Your name here
When I saw that Scotiabank had bought 20 years of naming rights for the former Air Canada Centre in Toronto for $800 million, I have to admit my first thought was that they should change their advertising slogan from “You’re richer than you think” to “We’re richer than you think.”
Why? Because they clearly now have more money than they know what to do with. Sports naming rights – naming rights in general – seem to me like a rich person’s folly. Getting to plant whatever name you choose on something just doesn’t seem like it’s a quick promotional return. Name recognition is fine, but Scotiabank’s logic – that calling the rink the Scotiabank Arena will connect Scotiabank even more strongly to hockey, and people who like hockey will therefore like Scotiabank more – seems more like an explanation drawn up after the deal was done than it does cogent business policy.
The jury’s out on whether name rights pay off for firms. Some studies find the practice creates a negligible affect for sponsors. Other naming rights deals have been total flops – often, because the company involved tanks. Remember Enron Field? The Houston Astros used to play there until the oil company was basically revealed as a corporate shell game. The St. Louis Rams sold naming rights to Trans World Airlines, who named the field Trans World Dome, and then went bankrupt before the field even opened. And that list goes on.
Not that there aren’t plenty of people ready to jump right into the naming rights game. There are plenty of cities and towns that see a gold lining, let alone a silver one, in letting big corporate egos underwrite public costs.
In 2015, the town of Beaumont, Alta. – population 18,320 – put out prices on its new Aquafit Centre. You could pick a name for the whole complex for a commitment of $107,500 a year, or just take the fitness centre or the multi-purpose room for $17,500 a year or $8,500 a year, respectively.
In 2013, the Halifax Regional Municipality put out Administrative Order No. 56, the HRM Sale of Naming Rights Administrative Order, which basically says anyone can buy the rights to name any HRM asset with a street address, if the price and terms are right.
Respite centres, sporting facilities, hospital wings, business schools – it’s hard to know if a place is named after someone because of their skills and devotion to a cause, or because they simply have enough money in their wallet.
Not that I’m immune.
For the right price, I’ll sell you the naming rights for my house or the car. You could name the deck in honour of your grandmother, and I’m sure my evening beers would taste just as good on the Edith Snickley Memorial Deck as they do now. I’ll happily even drink a toast in Edith’s name once a week or so, if the contribution is enough to cover the cost of said beer. (I like craft beer, so open your wallets wide.)
I’m thinking the former Bank of Montreal – now BMO – might like to step up and sponsor my six-year old cat, Gretel, who I still frequently call Kitten because I’m bad with remembering names. Heck, think of the marketing potential in naming such a pleasant cat “BMeow.” (Using her picture will be extra.) Scotiabank supposedly spent something like 10 times what Air Canada had been spending to call the same rink the Air Canada Centre, a moniker that quickly was shortened to the ACC, losing the airline a good chunk of name recognition in the process.
It’s a good thing the minds at Scotiabank were happy with Scotiabank Arena – because if they’d picked the Scotiabank Financial Arena, it would have certainly been quickly shortened to the offhandedly offensive SFA.
Which, in the long run, might be all they, and their shareholders, get out of the deal.
To recap: there’s no real sign that naming rights boost a company’s fortune anywhere in range of its ego.
But what we have established is that everything is for sale.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in 35 SaltWire newspapers and websites in Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at rwanger@thetelegram.com — Twitter: @wangersky.