»
The new stadium of the New York Mets, which will open in the spring of 2009, will be named Citi Field after sponsor Citigroup, which has agreed to pay more than $20 million a year for at least 20 years, according to published estimates.
If estimates prove correct, the Citigroup deal, formally announced yesterday, is the most lucrative in the U.S. for naming rights, reports The New York Times.
Experts wonder whether Mets fans will balk at the name. The current ballpark, Shea Stadium, is named after a lawyer who helped bring professional baseball back to New York after two New York teams hightailed it for the West Coast.
Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, is quoted as saying, “The risk of word-of-mouth backlash, especially among die-hard loyals, is significant.”
Other experts, such as David Bialek, president at the ANC Sports Marketing division of ANC Sports Enterprises in Purchase, N.Y., think it’s a good match. “Because it’s New York, and because Citigroup is such an enormous business in the New York area, it’s a perfect marriage,” he told the Times, adding that fans are accustomed to this type of commercialization.
Perhaps in preparation to a backlash, the Mets website is playing up the fact that the stadium will “prominently pay homage to the spirit of the Brooklyn Dodgers - not only with its granite and limestone facade, but also with an exquisite rotunda area that will pay tribute to Jackie Robinson.”
The naming comes at a time when Citigroup is looking to unify its image. The company announced last week that it is paying $34 million for the naming-rights to Boston’s Wang Center for the Performing Arts. It also owns naming rights to minor league baseball stadiums on Long Island, N.Y. and in Midland, Texas.
The Mets will become the first major New York team in the big four sports (hockey, baseball, football, basketball) market to name its stadium after a marketer. The New York Yankees, which will also open a stadium in 2009, say they plan to reuse the Yankee Stadium name.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
