Corporate game

It's Sun., June 19, 2000, and it's a beautiful day in San Francisco here at Pacific Bell Park. Amid the Old Navy Splash Landing in right field, the Coca-Cola bottles attached to a light tower in left, the wall-to-wall ads around the stadium rim, and the ads for a now-defunct dot-com on my cup holder, a packed house of over 43,000 fans watches a tightly played game between the hometown Giants and the Houston Astros. This stadium, tabbed the Miracle on 3rd Street, may seem more a demon than a miracle to those who cry out against commercialism in sports. Yet even here in one of the most liberal parts of the country, there seems to be little outcry at the ballpark, least of all from me, since I paid just $23 today for one of the best seats in the house. The experience probably would have been worse for me and some of the savvier (and poorer) fans today if our tickets were more expensive (as they easily could be), or if the stadium had been built with tax money (as all recent stadiums have been), but Pac Bell Park is a funny, amazing modern miracle. Sponsors like Pacific Bell, Old Navy, and Coke, with the help of a loan taken out by team owner Peter McGowan, paid for this perfectly placed park in downtown San Francisco, the first privately financed major league stadium in 38 years. Call it strange, but when watching a team that might have moved to Florida without a phone company-financed field, commercialism in sports doesn't seem so terrible.

MIKE HARRIS/YH Houston's Enron Field is one of several ballparks named after corporate sponsors.

I'm not here to question the obscene amount of money in sports or some of the ridiculous names that result when corporations and pro sports collide (Conseco Fieldhouse, anyone?). Stadium names like the Network Associates Coliseum, Qualcomm Stadium, and the Pepsi Center sound no better to me than they do to a more ardent sports purist. However, with salaries showing few signs of coming back down to earth even if team revenues cannot always catch up, the question of corporate stadium names is simple: do you want an acronym paying for your team's free agent pickups or do you want to pay for them, through both taxes for new stadiums and higher ticket prices?

Particularly in baseball, where there is no salary cap or revenue sharing, medium-market teams like San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh need new stadiums to stay competitive and profitable, and it's no surprise this season that the Brewers and the Pirates have seen considerable attendance increases in brand-new Miller and PNC Parks, respectively. Milwaukee's new retractable-dome stadium keeps fans coming even when the weather is horrible, as it often is, and the sponsor could hardly be better connected to the team (though admittedly, Pabst Blue Ribbon Park would be a frat boy's dream). In Pittsburgh, Three Rivers Stadium has been replaced with something far better: a park where one of those three rivers, the Allegheny, is actually visible, rather than the ugly multipurpose stadium ring of the past. It's worth noting, by the way, that neither of these team's average ticket prices is within seven dollars of the major greed-leading Yankees and Red Sox.

However, there are ways in which commercialism in sports can become too disgusting for its own good: KFC, for example, had plans to buy the Vancouver Grizzlies and move them to Louisville to become the Kentucky Colonels, playing in a stadium called the KFC Bucket. Another plan unlikely to come to fruition, unless Red Sox owners want to be ousted like Bill Buckner, will make Boston's new stadium Polaroid Park. There are certain lines of tradition and respectability that corporate sponsorship, necessary as it is, cannot cross, although compromises can be reached. The new Broncos stadium, Invesco Field at Mile High, is such an example: Invesco is happy to gain great exposure, the Broncos owners are happy to have the money to help build the stadium (which was partially funded on just a 1/2 cent increase to state sales tax), and fans are happy to still call the stadium Mile High.

Purists may not be happy with the big-money era of sports, but then again, purists should remember that one of their favorite ballparks already holds the name of a gum company (thank you, Mr. Wrigley). Abroad, soccer teams' jerseys are plastered with ads, and even team names are for sale: one Mexico City team is actually named after a cement company. The day the Baltimore PSINets are playing the San Diego Qualcomms, I'll rise to arms, but until then I'll be dreaming of, rather than scorning, Pac Bell Park.

Back to Sports...