Commercial Alert asks sportswriters to call sports stadiums by nicknames, not corporate names

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert 				June 13, 2000

Responding to the rise of sports stadiums with corporate naming rights
agreements, Commercial Alert sent letters today to sportswriters at the
fifty largest U.S. and Canadian newspapers to encourage them to call
stadiums by nicknames instead of corporate names, such as the
FleetCenter, Enron Field, Staples Center, and FedEx Field.  The letter
follows.

* * * * * 

	There comes a time when all of us must stand up and be counted,
sportswriters not excepted.  They too must come to the proverbial plate
on occasion, with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth with two
outs and the team down by three.

	Now is one of those times, and the question is the names of the
locations of the sports events which they cover. 

	Ball parks and stadiums are part of sports lore and legend.  Can one
recount Willie Mays' back-to-the-plate catch off Vic Wertz in the 1954
World Series, without mention of the spacious center field of the old
Polo Grounds?  Would Reggie Jackson's October heroics have loomed quite
as large in any stadium besides the House that Ruth Built?  Could
Havlicek have stolen the ball anyplace besides the Garden?

	Those stadium names -- Polo Grounds, Fenway, Forbes Field, Tiger
Stadium, and on and on -- are part of the poetry of sports.  They cast
their spell on us throughout our lives.  They serve to connect
professional sports in locality and place, and provide a thread of
connection between parents and kids, one generation and another.

	How many fathers have taken their kids to Yankee Stadium or Fenway and
pointed out where they were sitting at some momentous game of yore?  In
times of turmoil and change these threads become precious.  Yet they are
being ripped from our lives, and the reason is that corporations are
seizing the names of our beloved parks and stadiums, and replacing these
with their own.

	It was a sad, sad day when Boston's Garden became the Fleet Center, and
San Francisco's Candlestick became 3Com Park.  Even the name Meadowlands
Arena provided a touch of grace to that maligned venue that the new name
-- Continental Airlines Arena -- does not.  This change represents a
flattening of our culture, the emotional equivalent of a Soviet
marriage.  It uproots sports from local culture and tradition, and wraps
them in the pecuniary legalism of commerce instead.  It is yet another
instance of the chilling and Orwellian corporate takeover of our civic
and cultural life.

	Sports writers are our last line of defense.  You are the keepers of
the language of sports.  You have the power to name, which is the power
to define.  You wield this power each time you sit down to write; and I
urge you to wield it on behalf of our memories, our local cultures, and
the bonds between parents and kids.

	I urge you to write as a keeper of the magic that draws us to sports,
rather than as -- I must say this -- a corporate shill.

	There is no law that says that you have to call a sports venue what a
big corporation wants you to call it.  Nicknames are another rich sports
tradition, from Bronco and the Babe to Magic and Dr. J.  Today most of
you call the manager of the San Francisco Giants by a name (Dusty) other
than the one his mother gave him.

	If you can do that, then why can't you call the stadium where he
manages by a name other than the one its corporate sponsor gave it?

	There is no reason. There is no reason why 3Com cannot have an
affectionate local nickname in your columns and stories -- the New
Candlestick perhaps.  There is no reason why the Fleet Center cannot
become the New Garden (pronounced without the "r" of course), and why
the United Center cannot become New Chicago Stadium, or perhaps
something better.

	This would be a service to sports fans -- at the most simple level they
would know where you are talking about.  How many of us can keep
straight the corporate names that have no grounding in place in our
minds. 3Com, Qualcomm -- who knows which is which?

	But more important is the role you can play in reclaiming this one
vestige of sports tradition and memory from the marauders with deep
pockets and shallow hearts.

	You can do this.  No one can stop you.  What good is freedom of speech
if you are not willing to exercise it?

	The bases are loaded.  It is the bottom of the ninth.  Will you show
the courage you expect of the players of whom you write? 

Sincerely,
									

Gary Ruskin
Director
<-----------letter ends here---------->

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
1) Call or email your favorite sportswriters and sportscasters. Ask them
to call stadiums by their nicknames, not corporate names.
2) Call or email the sports editor of your favorite local newspaper,
radio and tv stations.  Ask them to castadium nicknames, not corporate
names.
3) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper encouraging them
to use nicknames not corporate names.
4) Ask your friends and colleagues to call sports stadiums by their
nicknames, not corporate names.

Commercial Alert opposes the excesses of commercialism, marketing and
advertising.  Commercial Alert's web address is
<http://www.essential.org/alert/>. 

Commercial Alert's materials are distributed electronically via the
commercial-alert mailing list <commercial-alert@lists.essential.org>. To
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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
http://www.essential.org/alert/ | mailto:gary@essential.org
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