So what would you call the arena formerly known as Staples Center?
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Staples Center will be renamed on Christmas Day before the game between the Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets.
The world according to Jim:
• It’s almost a given, isn’t it? You go on vacation, and you come back to find things have changed. Maybe your desk,if you still have an office, is in a different place, maybe workplace procedures have changed since you left, maybe the environment around you has shifted ever so slightly.
Or maybe the cryptocurrency guys have taken over . ...
• The news broke on the way home from the airport Tuesday, and while I was mildly surprised, maybe I shouldn’t have been. The building we’ve known for 21 basketball/hockey seasons as Staples Center will be known as something else on Christmas Day, its naming rights sold for 20 years and $700 million to a purveyor of virtual currency . ...
• My first thought was, are we being pranked? ...
• My second thought? In reselling the name, AEG hopefully stipulated that it gets the $700 million in cold, hard cash, rather than its equivalent in NFTs or the official currencies of Internet hackers and blackmail artists worldwide. When the value of virtual currency is volatile enough to hinge on what Elon Musk is tweeting at a given time ... no thanks. I’ll take my chances with greenbacks. ...
• But that’s not the main point here. The name change has hit a lot of people in L.A. hard, since it’s akin to AEG selling off a piece of L.A.’s sports heritage. That building has been home to championship celebrations and memorable moments galore since its opening in October 2019. I suppose a name change shouldn’t damage those memories, but in a way it seems like disrespecting the past . ...
• I get the sense much of the public will ignore the name change. I know I will. Beginning Dec. 25 — and there’s some irony in the idea that the moneychangers will make their takeover official on Christmas Day — in This Space the Lakers, Kings and Clippers will simply play in downtown Los Angeles.
A more detailed description? OK. Next to the L.A. Convention Center. Or across from L.A. Live. Or at the corner of Figueroa Street and Chick Hearn Court. (For some reason, I like that description the best.) ...
• Maybe it’s time to rethink our usage of all corporate facility names. After all, the new owners of the naming rights aren’t paying to advertise their firm or their product, so why should we do so for free? And the more the names change, with their accompanying confusion, the less impact they have. Can anyone name the arenas in Miami, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, or Toronto
without looking them up? ...
• Example: The San Francisco Giants’ home stadium has now had four corporate names in 22 seasons of existence, and maybe the only thing preventing mass confusion is its address of 24 Willie Mays Plaza and its location next to McCovey Cove.
Then again, if you’re prone to snark, you might refer to it in honor of the (momentary) Dodger who hit three home runs on the ballpark’s first opening day in 2000. Doesn’t “Kevin Elster Park” have a nice ring to it? ...
• And a reminder:
While the Buffalo Bills were the first to name their stadium after a corporate entity in 1972, the deluge of naming rights deals didn’t shift into overdrive until December 1988, when Jerry Buss reached a deal with Great Western Bank to attach its name to The Forum. The name outlasted the bank itself . ...
• Apropos of nothing, but the latest Rams loss to the 49ers jogged the memory. The best rendition of the National Anthem I’ve ever heard: Emmylou Harris, at Candlestick Park, before a Rams-Niners game Oct. 31, 1993. The Rams lost that game, too, 40-17, in a 5-11 season one year before leaving town for a couple of decades . ...
• I saw portions of Monday’s Niners’ rout in a Waikiki restaurant that used cardboard cutouts to enforce social distancing. (And yes, there’s a vaccination mandate. They still take COVID-19 seriously in paradise.) ...
• Should today’s USCUCLA game at the Coliseum be considered the Loser Leaves Town Bowl?
Beyond Trojan freshman quarterback Jaxson Dart’s first start, there’s not a whole lot else worthy of buzz. But consider that even though UCLA is now bowl eligible, Chip Kelly’s seat remains hot enough that another loss to SC might turn it into an ejector seat. In that case, both programs will be looking for replacements . ...
• There is precedent at UCLA. Jim Mora, Rick Neuheisel, Karl Dorrell and Bob Toledo were all fired after losses to USC and interim coaches handled the bowl game in each case. (The only winner among those interim coaches? Ed Kezirian, who coached Toledo’s team to victory over New Mexico in the 2002 Las Vegas Bowl.)
Who’s the best interim candidate this time? You know, just in case . ...
• Last note on facility names/nicknames: There are few reasons for us to miss the departed L.A. Sports Arena, now the site of the sparkling home of LAFC, but there should be a place in some Hall of Fame somewhere for Bruce Springsteen’s description of the old place: “The dump that jumps.”
Let’s see any current edifice match that.