what’s in a name?
The St Pete Times reported on Saturday that USF has inked a deal to rename the Sun Dome for a company that finances student loans. Aside from the apparently signing a deal with the Gotti family wing of the Student Loan industry (and aside from completely ignoring that the Times themselves renamed the Ice Palace in their own name recognition endeavor) maybe we should stop to think about a few of our complaints about our home. Lets also think about why this issue of naming our landmarks after the highest bidder takes a little bit from us with each stadium, field, or venue.
As a city we are often described as lacking vision, culture, or significant history. This may seem not to be related to the renaming of a mid-size college sports and music venue but keep in mind the rest of the country views us through the lens of popular media and our public venues are what we present to the world. They are a big part of what sets one city apart from every other city in the nation. Think about what you know about the cities you most want to visit but never have.
I think of Chicago when you say Soldier Field. Mention Los Angeles and I think of watching the 1984 Olympics at the LA Coliseum. Fenway Park means you are in Boston. New York? Madison Square Gardens. I remember watching the World Series be interrupted by an earthquake before the game at Candlestick Park. Currently named Monster Park, it is set to go back to its historic name for good soon. Its corporate sponsors apparently having thrown up their hands at locals who refuse to call it anything else.
Yes, it is a small thing. I know. Consider though that really the Academic Financial Services Arena could exist anyplace. Nothing about it says “Tampa” at all while the Sun Dome has at least regional recognition.
We have already given up so much and for what?
The Ice Palace is the St Pete Times Forum, how did that help either the venue or the city? Could ticket prices really be higher? The Suncoast dome/ThunderDome is Tropicana field now. Does anybody in the US know where Tropicana field is?
And yes, I am tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. Raymond James Stadium… Isn’t that in Jacksonville? Does that say “Tampa” to you? Does it get you ready for great football?
We are hypocrites to complain about the lack of any culture or sense of history here when we freely auction it off at the very first opportunity.
Tags: marketing, sports, tourism
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July 18th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Raymond James is based in St. Petersburg.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
If we actually had some sort of historical venue like Soldier Field, this post would have more meaning. But we don’t. Thanks for playing.
(We had Tampa Stadium, which most people called Big Sombrero back then. Now it’s called RayJay parking.)
July 18th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
My friends and I still say “Ice Palace” and we always will. But if they’re going to change the name of the Sun Dome, may I suggest “Garbage Dump Arena”. For a stadium that is 25 years old, it looks like low-income housing for sports teams. Why are some of the stands built out of plywood? It has got to be one of the most unfriendly environments to watch sports and concerts. USF is playing in a high profile conference now, it’s time to stop playing home games in a barn.
July 18th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I’m an AFS employee and USF student both. (And actually, been doing both for three years now.) Putting aside the fact that USF is in the middle of the student loan industry scandal due to its relationships with Sallie Mae, the owner of AFS, Wayne Morgan, has already spent millions in advertising and other business relationships through the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Bucs, and the Lightning. Considering the USF Bulls are the only major sports orginization left not to be sponsored by AFS, that the vast majority of the money would be going directly into Dome improvements, and that the target demographic for our company is college age students, the better question would’ve been, “Why not sooner?”