Fiserv Forum name exudes what exactly?
In Milwaukee’s L-shaped string of arenas, we have an Auditorium-turnedTheatre, an Arena, a Center and now a Forum.
All we need are a Garden and Fieldhouse for the complete naming set.
Fiserv Forum is the name announced last week for the new Milwaukee Bucks arena.
I know that sounds more like the name of Fiserv’s internal newsletter, and it actually is what the company calls its annual client convention. So it’s being recycled.
Frankly, the name falls short of exciting when it’s up in orange lights at the Bucks arena. Then again, calling it the Journal Sentinel Jumbo Sitting Place would be worse, plus we couldn’t afford it.
These things take time. But eventually you’ll be saying, “Meet me at the Fiserv Forum,” with more or less a straight face.
We’ve got 25 years to get used to it. That’s how long Fiserv Inc.’s naming rights are scheduled to run. Fiserv Forum is likely to outlive me, but then I thought that about the Bradley Center when it went up in 1988. Now it has a date with the wrecking ball.
Unlike contests to name zoo animals, the public doesn’t get to weigh in when it comes to what we call our sports palaces. They’re afraid we’d go with Bucky McBuckface.
It was generous and communityminded for Fiserv to kick in untold millions of dollars, which should keep ticket prices down a buck or whatever. Then again, it turns out we taxpayers are paying the company $12.5 million to keep its headquarters in Wisconsin, so really we’re helping pay for the arena and the naming rights.
Corporate names on stadiums and arenas are pretty common now. Money changes hands and the next thing you know your favorite team is playing at Guaranteed Rate Field or the KFC Yum! Center. Lambeau Field has managed to resist the trend.
News reports typically use the full sponsored name, but in real life the rest of us don’t have to. I’m guessing the Fiserv Forum will be shortened to the Forum by most people, that is when we’re not calling it the Bucks arena. God bless the Marcus Corp., but most of us still call the PAC the PAC.
Twitter page Dear MKE predicts we’ll go with the clever Four-One-Forum. It’s not impossible that our area code could even work for the address of the joint, say 414 W. Highland Ave., where Highland Avenue used to cross 4th Street before we developed a serious case of arena sprawl in Milwaukee.
There’s only one other Forum in the NBA these days, and that’s the FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee, which enjoys the same F-word alliteration. Centers dominate the naming front with 14, Arenas number 10, Gardens total two, and the Indiana Pacers have a Fieldhouse named for Bankers Life.
Forum is defined as a gathering place where ideas and views on an issue can be exchanged. I suppose dribbling and dunking would qualify in the broadest sense of the word.
And Fiserv is a made-up word, a mashup of financial and services that manages to sound high-tech and stodgy at the same time. The company logo puts a period on the end for some reason.
Fiserv and the Bucks are teamed up for the next quarter century, and they don’t fear the jeer of people mocking the arena name online.
The Bucks — we’re for ‘em at the Forum! Maybe I’ll trademark that one.