The Wall Street Journal (which has a very underrated sports section) has a fun story about stadium naming rights, and me being me, I couldn’t help but share these two paragraphs.
When Dan Gilbert bought the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2005 for $375 million, he named the team’s arena after his company, Quicken Loans. Since the change, the Cavaliers have won 66% of their games. They’d won 44% in the 11 previous seasons when the building was named for the team’s former owner, Gordon Gund.
Citigroup seems to have had the opposite effect. Since the company signed a 20-year, $400 million agreement with the New York Mets in late 2006, the team hasn’t made it to the playoffs. Its first season in its brand-new ballpark, Citi Field, produced the team’s worst record in 15 years.
Personally I don’t care if the stadium is named Citi Field. Â I would have preferred Shea or something Mets related, but now that it has a name, Citi Field is the name and should last forever…lest we be like the Marlins/Dolphins.