Naming Rights ≠ Waste

There was a lovely posting at Talking Points Memo yesterday with the NALM subtext that naming stadiums after companies is bad; wasteful.

The post’s topic was that Citicorp just got a ton more money from the government in order to stay afloat, and yet it’s still spending $400 million on naming rights at the new New York Mets stadium (which will be called Citi Field). Rachel Maddow also had a segment on this on last night’s show.

The disdain journalists can have for the sources of their daily bread can sometimes amaze a marketer who’s worked in media. I understand the need for distance from sponsors and advertisers, certainly; this distance enables integrity. And I rather admire those who bite the hand that feeds in the name of integrity—since sponsors and advertisers, including multi-billion-dollar banks on the dole from the Feds, support the marketing and media industries that pay most journalist’s salaries (even Blogads-supported journalists).

But these guys shouldn’t show such disrespect for an entire industry, in this case sports marketing, as to assume ipso facto that naming rights are so wasteful that no company receiving taxpayer money should be allowed to spend money on them.

Look, Citicorp is spending $400 million for these rights, which they will have for 20 years. $20 million a year. Let’s forget for the moment that some of this $20 million a year will go to employ people—that’s a complicated and I think ultimately specious argument.

No, the point of marketing is to make extra money by investing in it. Having the stadium of one of the best-known teams in the U.S. named after your company means that that name will be repeated over and over again, on TV, on the radio, in sports articles, on the train, in peoples homes, and a thousand other places. Will frequently hearing, reading, and thinking the word “Citi” cause consumers and businesspeople to go to Citicorp more often, enough so that the bank will gain more than $20 million a year in additional revenue? I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound outlandish to me; far from it.

Junkets for losers, on the other hand—now those are wasteful. Just a lot less expensive (usually).

→ Update: My buddy SK points out to me that it’s actually Citicorp, not Citibank, naming the stadium. So I’ve corrected the above.