Nader: Whose Stadium Is It Anyway?

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert			January 30, 2001

Yesterday, Denver's Metropolitan Football Stadium Board named Denver's
new stadium "Invesco Field at Mile High."  Following is an op-ed by
Ralph Nader on the naming of that stadium, from the January 28 edition
of the Rocky Mountain News.

Whose Stadium Is it Anyway? For Sake of Fans Everywhere, Fight For The
Mile High Name 
by Ralph Nader 

Sometime this week, the Metropolitan Football Stadium District Board of
Directors is expected to decide whether to retain the proud Mile High
name on Denver's new sports stadium, or to sell it to a corporation that
wants you to say its name every time you talk sports. 

Invesco Funds Group Inc. is leading the charge of crass commercialism.
It wants to pay $120 million to name the stadium "Invesco Field at Mile
High. " If the deal goes through, the stadium will doubtless be called
Invesco Field. 

Just 10 years ago, such corporate naming rights deals were almost
nonexistent. Now the tawdry spectacle of corporate-named stadiums is
draining the fun out of sports. 

Our country is besotted with corporate-named arenas like Qualcomm
Stadium, MCI Arena, Enron Field, Pepsi Center, Fleet Center, Arco Arena
and Bank One Ballpark. Every one of these corporate names grates on
sports fans, who yearn for sports that are untainted by yammering
pitchmen and blatant hucksterism. 

The sale of naming rights is part of a broader trend -- the ubiquitous
ad-plastering and marketeering that accompanies the hostile corporate
takeover of so much of our culture and our country. 

We are drowning in a ocean of commercialism. We are buried under junk
mail, telemarketing, junk faxes and billboards. We are barraged with ads
in airport lounges, bus stops, doctors' offices, movie theaters,
hospitals, gas stations, elevators, convenience stores, on the Internet,
on fruit, beach sand, garbage cans, ATMs and countless other places. 

Even worse, our public schools have become showrooms for the delivery of
ads to captive audiences of impressionable children. And our elections
have been commercialized and corrupted by huge sums of corporate "soft
money" campaign contributions. 

It's time to reverse the trend. Corporations shouldn't be allowed to own
or control everything, including much of our culture. Nor should
corporate marketers be allowed to buy or lay claim to every moment of
our attention. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb said it best: "not
everything should be for sale. " 

This is not just about a stadium name. This is about whether we might
have physical and mental space that is not cluttered by corporate logos
nor colonized by the materialistic, self-serving, money-is-everything
values of the market. 

The Mile High name helps give Denver a sense of place. It builds
community. It is a tradition that binds many Coloradans to each other.
Take the name away, or shunt it aside with Invesco Field, and the
community will miss something. The bonds will loosen. The harm may not
be tangible, and you can't measure it in dollars, but the emptiness will
be there. 

Sports profiteers are overconfident. Sports marketing expert Dean Bonham
predicted that "by 2002, virtually every major sports facility in the
country will have a naming-rights deal associated with it." 

Let's prove him wrong. We don't have to watch ballgames against a
backdrop of ads from global corporate hucksters, too many of whom are
corporate felons, polluters, tax cheats and corporate welfare
recipients. 

Taxpayers are paying for three-quarters of the new $364 million stadium
with a penny-per-10-dollar sales tax. The Metropolitan Football Stadium
District board ought to respect the taxpayers, and whether they wish to
attend a game at Mile High. 

Public support for keeping the Mile High name is strong and growing. A
poll taken in December found that 48 percent of Denver residents want to
retain the name Mile High, while only 15 percent want to sell the naming
rights. 

This is the place to make a stand. For more than 50 years of sports
memories. For the good times and the bad times in a stadium that
millions loved. For tradition. For community. For Denver's sports
heroes. 

Sports fans and taxpayers, make your voices heard. Pledge to boycott any
company that puts its name on the stadium, like the Invesco Funds Group,
and tell the Metropolitan Football Stadium District to keep the name
Mile High. 

<-----article ends here------>
FOR MORE INFORMATION
* about the naming of Denver's new stadium, see today's article "Invesco
Field It Is," in the Rocky Mountain News, at
<http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/1,1299,DRMN_15_11078,00.html>.

* about stadium naming rights and commercialism in sports, see
Commercial Alert's website <http://www.commercialalert.org>.


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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
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Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax: (202) 833-2406
http://www.commercialalert.org | mailto:gary@essential.org
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