What’s really behind the rename game?
Unpronounceable corporate millions, our venues show
Imagine your name atop this column. You!
Here! Or imagine your company’s name in this win-win arrangement:
You get listed on this high-priced piece of media real estate. I write the column. You get all the fame, celebrity, media groupies and bifurcated email — the love and hate —of being a big-city sports columnist.
I get a few million in cash (or the best offer).
So much of our sports market is being renamed, so why should I be kept out of the money grab? The Miami Heat, Miami Marlins and Inter Miami have all recently announced their homes are being renamed in exchange for corporate millions.
Change like this is never fun for fans, but this isn’t pocket change in the business of sports. The price tag is just north of $6 million a year for the Heat and Marlins homes (this column’s cost is looking better and better).
The practical problem is these venues’ new names double-dribble off your tongue. The Heat’s home will become FTX Arena. The Marlins are playing in “loanDepot park.” Inter Miami is “AutoNation’s DRV PNK Stadium.” Charming names, right?
No one will call them by these names for years while they sink into the sub-consciousness — if they ever do. More likely, they’ll be called some twisted version of the name. That’s if you can twist these names.
Here are some winning, social-media entries from “What We’ll Really Call The Stadium,” in which people wrote what we’ll end up calling them.
“After the Marlins first series where they were shut out twice and had trouble scoring, loan-Depot park should be called Loan-me-a-couple-runs Park.” And: “Loanshark Park.” And: “Moan Depot.”
Or, considering the Marlins’ spending habits, it was suggested: “The CheapoDepot.”
At least the Marlins new home lends itself to some fun. What do you call the Heat playing FTX Arena — named for a crypto-currency company?
“The Crypto Crib?”
Or Inter Miami’s odd name – “DRV PNK Stadium?” It comes wrapped in a noble, corporate cause. AutoNation has donated more than $26 million in partnering with local and national cancer charities. Who doesn’t support that?
But DRV PNK Stadium? Who even will know what you’re talking about?
Fan No. 1: “Let’s hit The Pink.” Fan No 2: “Why not go to the soccer game instead?”
The Heat’s arena involves a different civic cause. It’s a new, public revenue stream. MiamiDade exercised an option to pay the Heat $2 million a year and signed a 19-year, $135 million contract with FTX.
That’s more than $4 million a year for Miami-Dade – though let’s wait until we see a few of those checks actually in the public coffers before we’re sure that actually ends up in the public coffers. Are they going to be paid in cryptocurrency?
It seems equal parts noble and outdated there was such a furor when the Dolphins changed the original Joe Robbie Stadium to Pro Player Park. Then Pro Player Stadium. Then: Dolphin Stadium, Landshark Stadium, Dolphins Stadium, Sun Life Stadium and now Hard Rock Stadium.
How many times have we danced that dance?
At least Hard Rock Stadium has a natural nickname preferred by the older crowd — Joe Robbie Stadium. That’s not to accuse any team of being greedy. Joe Robbie would sell his name off his stadium for the millions being handed over too.
Meanwhile, Marlins Park — I mean, loanDepot park — allows the team to afford a middle reliever if they spend it properly. That’s the understood acceptance for all these corporate names.
Maybe they’re a measure of a changing world too. Team leaders don’t get their names on stadiums anymore. They get statues outside a stadium whose corporate name changes at some negotiated point.
And speaking of negotiations, the floor is open for putting your name atop this column. Imagine your name where mine is. Imagine the fame coming your way. And imagine me on an island, typing this column, answering the hate mail, your millions well spent.