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We're sure there are some people out there who are all interested in the AT&T/SBC merger because of what it means to the stock market. And we're sure there are some of you out there who are interested in the merger because of what it means for your job. But we here at SFist are interested in it for only reason -- what name will the Giants now call home? While the people behind the merger have admitted that they haven't figured out what the new name will be, whatever it will be will ultimately affect that little park the Giants play in. After all, it would serve no purpose for the new company to keep its namesake stadium by a name it no longer is. Fifty-three million dollars in naming rights, after all, gets them the ability to name the place any ol' way they want. They could name it "The Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings" or Frodo's House of Prime Ribs and there's nothing we can do about it.
Even though we've always disliked the naming of stadiums after corporations (but think the voting on it is silly) we took a shining to Pacific Bell Park. Shortened to its nickname, Pac Bell Park, the name became comfy, like the proverbial pair of old shoes, as its shortened name somehow took out any whiff of the corporation that bought it. SBC Park, however, was liked by pretty much no one. Most people still refer the stadium at 3 Willie Mays Plaza as Pac Bell, or start off by calling it Pac Bell, then call it SBC and then just give up. And now we'll have to get used to calling it by yet another name.
Gosh darnit, life is hard enough without having to constantly remember what the name of your baseball stadium is.
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Hmm. TypeKey validation failed, for some reason.
Anyway, I expect my approach will be the same as it was for Candlestick. When they changed the name to 3COM Park, I just called it "The Park Formerly Known as Candlestick."
Seems kinda unwieldy, but I'm not the kind of person who sez very much, so it's generally not an issue.
The replacement freeway exit signs for Candlestick/3COM went up recently - heading home on 101N from my office the signs now read "Monster Park" which sounds better than 3COM to me at least.
I think that the trick to these things is to use a word rather than an acronym. Unless SBC feels like a total rebranding is in order as a result of this acquisition, it seems unlikely that the combo of two companies with acronyms for names will result in anything but another acronym though.
Weren't Verizon and Cingular also combos of baby-bells with acronyms for names? Dunno if I'd like those names for parks, though.
Maybe we should just consider ourselves lucky to have even had "Pac Bell Park" for a name, if even for a short while. And SBC Park isn't as bad a name as frickin' Minute Maid Park (still an improvement over Enron, though).
But I think the root problem of all this (and many other issues) is that there's way too much money going into sports.
I think that if you're going to sell you're naming rights, you should at least make an effort to have it sound cool. Monster Park does have a nice ring to it (although we were rooting for Virgin to win)and Verizon or Cingular does sound better than say, ABC&S&T Park, or even Minute Made Field. Iyick.
Another funny thing about naming rights, though- they always go wrong