White Sox change the name of their stadium again, and it’s even worse

August 24, 2016 • 6:58 pm

Few major league baseball parks retain the names they had when I was a kid, for teams have learned that they can make big bucks by selling the naming rights to corporations. Only 11 major-league teams haven’t done that, and thank Ceiling Cat that Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Yankee Stadium remain.

Comiskey Park was the original name of the Chicago White Sox stadium, but it was demolished, rebuilt next door in the nineties, and then renamed US Cellular Field in 2003, with US Cellular paying $68 million. Now, as I’ve heard on the news, the naming rights have been sold again, and get the new name:

Guaranteed Rate Field

Yes, that’s right: it’s named after a lending company, and the rights hold through at least 2029. And I can’t imagine a worse name; this is even worse than Petco Park, the home of the San Diego Padres.

They interviewed some Chicago White Sox fans about this name change on the evening news, and, as you can imagine, they were not happy.

Everything’s for sale these days. The local buses have started being festooned with garish ads, websites abound with them (I pay to keep them off this site), and even park benches have ads on them.

What’s next? “Hey kids, let’s go out to Guaranteed Rate Field and catch the double header!”

Oy!

 

108 thoughts on “White Sox change the name of their stadium again, and it’s even worse”

  2. What puzzles me is that people co-operate with this. I continue to call Candlestick Park “Candlestick Park”; I couldn’t care less what corporate sponsors they take money from. People should just continue to call Comiskey Park “Comiskey Park”. Nothing is stopping them. This includes the media. I think sports fans should write/call in every time a commentator uses the wrong (and I do mean wrong) name for a venue.

    5. People should just continue to call Comiskey Park “Comiskey Park”. Nothing is stopping them. This includes the media.

      Specifically for people who work in the media, there are very likely to be contracts in place about using the “name, as sold” and all other paid-for advertising. Contracts with penalty causes.
      I recall that a few years ago one of the major players in Formula 1 (whatever it’s brand name is) was fined by the Formula 1 organisation because after a very hot race in one of the tropical countries, he appeared on the podium or at the post-race press conference with the collar of his race suit (multiple layers of flame-retardant fabric, with layers of insulation between – very hot!) undone. Shock horror! Totally understandable – the drivers lose several kilos per race through sweat.
      The fine imposed was tens or hundreds of thousands of (€/$/£, whatever). Even if you’re on a telephone number salary, that’s got to hurt.
      People have paid cold hard cash for those screen-seconds for their logos. On clothes, on hoardings, on bridges, whatever. And if you’re working in the advertising-funded media, you will get hurt if you don’t comply with the terms of those contracts. (Taxation-funded media, I’m not so sure. But given the revolving door between the two sides, you’re playing with fire.)

    6. Dodger Stadium, now the 3rd oldest stadium in the major leagues is still called Dodger Stadium.

      By the way, the Giants and the 49ers no longer play in Candlestick Park.

      1. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers basketball teams play in the Staple’s Center.

        1. Our once state-of-the-art SkyDome in Toronto ( Blue Jays baseball) has been the Rogers Centre for a while, though I still call it SkyDome. Basketball and hockey at Air Canada Centre( I think that’s the original name), and where the opera and ballet and symphony and many pkays were when I arrived in the 70s went from O’Keefe Centre to Hummingbird to Sony. Fortunately we now have newer and much much nicer venues for the symphony ( Roy Thomson Hall) and opera and ballet ( Young Centre – aka the opera house…). It all gets very confusing.

    1. And the Detroit Tigers Stadium, now Comerica Park, at least trips nicely off the tongue. If you didn’t know that was the name of a bank you might even like it.

  4. O m’golly, that appellation does so suck ! Utterly sad.

    I ‘feel’ a contest a – comin’ on, Dr Coyne, not ?

    Rename your team’s (incl AAA ones) home field.

    Be sure to include the name of your team which oft times with the AAA teams most especially have gloriously funny and darling ones ! the Toledo Mud Hens and the Omaha Storm Chasers !

    Give it your best hit !

    O, for the darling dayz of Mr Hobbs portrayed as ! The Natural ! by the mighty finest ever Mr Redford as of thus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjk3RsytFZg

    I still get chills down my spine with its final scene and that smashingly homerun … … .score. … … of a soundtrack.

    Blue

    2. I’ve always liked the Lansing Lugnuts.

      (Lansing, MI. For those not up on US Americana, Michigan was the US cradle for car manufacturing once. )

    3. I recently watched our local team lose to the Wichita Wingnuts. (No kidding.) This is sub-Class A ball. Much more fun in my opinion than MLB.

      1. Baseball team owners must just love.love alliteration — as do I!
        (Wish I could .own. a team or two, too!)

        That one is just darling!

        Blue

  5. They should have named it Guaranteed Rate Stadium. That’s less offensive to my ears than soiling more traditional sounding words like field, or park.

  7. Sorry, but any name is better than calling your stadium Comiskey Park. Charles Comiskey was perhaps the stingiest of the stingy, a super racist amongst the racist owners, and was the major cause of the Black Sox Scandal. I think I read that he made the players pay for their own laundry and benched Eddie Cicotte to prevent the pitcher from winning 30 games and earn a bonus.

    1. I highly recommend John Sayles’ film Eight Men Out, a dramatization of the Black Sox scandal and Comiskey’s role in it, with a cast of heavy hitters including David Strathairn, Bill Irwin, John Cusack, D.B. Sweeney, Christopher Lloyd, Charlie Sheen (before he became famous and obnoxious), and Sayles himself as Ring Lardner.

      3. Eliot Asinof’s book on which the movie is based, also called “Eight Men Out”, is also vivid and enlightening about the Black Sox scandal.

    3. One of the 8 players banned after the Black Sox scandal was Shoeless Joe Jackson, who, if he had continued his career, would have been one of the greatest baseball players in the history of the game. After his banning, Jackson and his wife moved to North Carolina and opened up a laundry where they made more money in the first year then he ever made playing baseball.

    4. Agreed. Comiskey was more than a miser; he was a dreadful human being. And not only does he bear large responsibility for the conditions that created the Black Sox, but for the aftermath, ie, the arrival of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner and an iron-fisted quarter-century rule. Landis is often accused of having impeded the possibility of black players in MLB, but the evidence is mixed, even though Branch Rickey waited until Landis died to sign Jackie Robinson.

  8. Guaranteed rate highway robbery ballpark hotdogs and drinks. Only a zillion dollars each.

  10. The Sacramento Kings played in ARCO Arena for years and that was a great name. Then they changed it to Power Balance Pavilion and people still called it ARCO. Now it’s Sleep Train Arena, which is a horrible name for a sports arena, but people still call it ARCO.

    Next year, the Detroit Red Wings will play at Little Caesar’s Arena (Pizza Pizza)…that’s god awful. So is Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in Louisville. How about KFC Yum Center for the for the U. of Louisville’s basketball teams?

    1. “Next year, the Detroit Red Wings will play at Little Caesar’s Arena (Pizza Pizza)”

      Especially bad as it replaces Joe Louis Arena, fondly known as The Joe.

    2. They missed the possibility of a Pizza Piazza?
      Oh man, they must either have a board full of knuckle-draggers, or target their goods (pizzas, I guess?) at knuckle-draggers.
      I suspect that “no true Italian” would call their product “pizza” too. “Warm greasy open sandwich” might be a bit optimistic.

    3. “Little Caesar’s Arena” makes some sense since the company is owned by Mike Ilitch, long time owner of the Wings.

  11. It could have been worse. It could have been named Preparation H Field, but at least that would have been appropriate.

  12. The U.S. Government should get in on the act. We could have the Statue of Liberty Mutual, the McDonald’s Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the Band-Aid Wounded Knee Battlefield and Ford Lincoln National Park.

    All these sponsorships were suggested as an April Fool’s joke on Marketplace.

  13. As a lifelong Yankee fan, I’m glad the name “Yankee Stadium” remains even if the new Stadium is basically a mediocre, overpriced shopping mall with a gorgeous field and world class baseball team in its center courtyard.

    Also, Charles Comiskey was a major league scumbag so not naming a stadium after him is a mitzvah. Still, they could call it simply White Sox Park and that would be fine with the entire universe.

    1. The Yankees are not a world class baseball team this year nor were they last year. I suspect that the fans are not too happy about the management trading away their closer for prospects and thus throwing in the sponge this year.

  14. In Omaha Nebraska, home of the College World Series – name the stadium they built for that event, TD Ameritrade Park. That would be the on line broker. Son of the founder happens to be the governor of Nebraska…Rickets. Or right next door is the Convention Center where all the big events are held. Name of this one is Qwest Center or now called Century Link. Internet and communications companies. Money not only talks, it gets to put its name on everything.

    2. Money not only talks, it gets to put its name on everything.

      I was about to see if anyone was willing to bet a beer on someone having sold the naming rights for their child.
      I have a sinking feeling that I’m late to the table with this bet. I just have a sinking feeling that this depth has been plumbed already.
      Naming rights auctioned on ebaY? No, that’s probably gone too. There was someone selling their virginity on ebaY a few years ago that raised a very small, short ruckus. I can’t remember if it was a guy or a girl selling the virginity … but … Cato wasn’t it? “O tempora, o mores!” (Oh Times, Oh Daily Mirror!)

          2. It’ll probably (sorry in advance) spark some memories in Flint, Michigan.
            (Big scandal over high lead in their municipal drinking water.)

    3. My sister once took me to a park near Omaha where we saw US West Lake. I’ve been wondering whether it became Qwest Lake and then Century Link Lake.

  15. Until a couple of years ago, the Minnesota Vikings played in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (built in the early ’80s, before naming rights). Eventually they sold naming rights to the field, and it became the Mall of America field at the HHH Metrodome.

    Ironically (or perhaps fittingly), the Mall of America sits on the site of the Vikings’ previous stadium.

    1. I still say, “the Vikings’ stadium”, “the Twins’ stadium”, “the Wild’s arena” etc.

      Never could stand the naming rights crap.

      Not that I go to any of them. Not a commercial sports fan.

  16. Yeah, I am an old fuddy-duddy, but wherever the White Sox play will always be Comiskey Park to me. And now the Sports Authority has gone belly-up, many of us are hopeful that the old Mile High Stadium will return.

      1. Exposing the depths of my iggorance, but I guess the Mile High Stadium is in Denver? And it has a “club” with many ladies^H^H^H^H persons of negotiable affection.

          1. Not wanting to touch things, eh?
            Blue pill or … (can’t find them in red) … black pill?
            We used to call the black ones “bovine gynaecology gloves” once the trainees stopped understanding “Herriot gloves”.

          2. Love the way your mind free associates. 😉

            Don’t tell me people don’t read Herriot any more… 🙁

          3. No guns (though plenty of drugs), so it’s not on TV very much. Doesn’t seem to go with the zeitgeist.

      2. And with legal weed, it is even more apt 🙂 Also, the home of the Avalanche and Nuggets is the Pepsi Center, but because of its shape and sponsor, most of us call it The Can.

        1. Ha, wish I’d thought of that!

          Well, at least The Can works for Pepsi. Of course, it would also work for Charmin…

    2. “many of us are hopeful that the old Mile High Stadium will return”

      Don’t get your hopes up too much.

      I predict: EnCana Field

  17. Yeah, when I was a kid ballparks had cool names like Forbes Field and Candlestick Park. (Not that MLB is ever going back to places like Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds.)

    This sell-a-name stuff is the worst trend to deface the grounds where America’s pastime is played since those big, round, ugly synthetic-turf joints got built in the 70s — places like Riverfront in Cincinnati and Three Rivers in Pittsburg and Veterans in Philly (and the even-more godawful monstrosity that preceded them all, the Astrodome in Houston).

    As the Phillies’ great flake of a third-baseman, Dick (f/k/a “Richie”) Allen, used to say: “If cows can’t eat it, I don’t wanna play on it.”

    2. “If cows can’t eat it, I don’t wanna play on it.”

      Gauntlets thrown down to both bovine genetic engineering and the materials sciences of ground covering.

  18. I’ve never understood advertising.

    Whenever my favourite TV program is buggered up by some moronic ad., I make a mental note that the next time I need to buy washing powder or whatever, I’ll choose the brand sitting next to the moron.

    1. Advertisements have no effect on me. The world economy would collapse if everyone were like me.

      1. “Advertisements have no effect on me. The world economy would collapse if everyone were like me.”

        That’s what they want you to think.

        1. Actually, ironically, there’s a way in which free market economics is self contradictory (more or less) because of advertising. The former requires non-distorted preferences, the latter distorts them. But banning advertising would also introduce a distort, so I conclude (with a bit more I need not go into) that FME is an ideological stance …

    2. I SO agree. Has anyone ever studied this? I doubt anyone is really wild about commercial names, and I’ll bet a significant number are uber annoyed, so it must be a net loss for the sponsor.

      1. Same here. I watch almost no commercial TV live but get so tired of the simpering ads surrounding the supposedly non-commercial PBS NewsHour. I will NEVER buy anything from Lincoln Financial ( and years ago I vowed never to buy any Charmin’ tp).

    3. Digital video recording and fast-forward button.
      Literally, I never watch anything “live” on TV these days apart from the news. The only time that I’m exposed to adverts is if I fall asleep over the remote control.

    4. “…the next time I need to buy washing powder or whatever, I’ll choose the brand sitting next to the moron.”

      Been a devoted Anything-but-Wisk customer since the ’70s.

  19. I hate sponsor’s names. At least in my preferred sport of cricket they are generally either prefixes or suffixes to pre-existing ground names (The Ageas Bowl, Southampton, which I generally refer to by location only being a dishonourable exception). When referring to Surrey’s home ground I just call it The Oval, although technically there is a sponsor’s name between the The and Oval (I neither know nor care who that sponsor currently is).

  21. I like the former name “US Cellular”. Without knowing its commercial implication, I can imagine that it was named after the cell and had a simple cell drawing for logo :-).

  22. Since 2005 the new hockey arena in Victoria, B.C., has been bathetically named the Save on Foods Arena, after the local supermarket chain, and usually shortened to the “Save on Arena”. To ram home the name’s utter banality the lettering over the entrance is precisely the same as in their supermarkets, so it simply looks like an oddly outsized branch.

  23. Since 2005 the new hockey arena in Victoria, B.C., has been bathetically named the Save on Foods Arena,

    So it’s a swimming arena in summer? 🙂

  24. We are one step closer to a “Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator Field”. Idiocracy is looking more prophetic every day.

  25. Well, the Washington Deadskins football team plays in FedEx Field while the Washington Wizards basketball team plays in the Verizon Center. The Washington National’s baseball team current plays in National’s Park but I bet the naming rights will be sold sooner or later.

  26. Author David Foster Wallace was ahead of the game in this corporate-naming-rights business. In his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, the numerals themselves had been stripped from the Gregorian calendar in favor of product sponsorship, in what was called “subsidized time” — the Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad, the Year of the Trial-size Dove Bar, the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, etc.

  27. At least we still have Yankee stadium.

    Seriously this bugs the hell out of me. I don’t have a problem with corporate SPONSORSHIP of a stadium, ans in “Candlestick Park, sponsored by xxx” but changing the name on a whim is absurd.

  28. I call where the Blue Jays play “Sky Dome”. So do most people I know. Who really cares what TV talking heads get paid to call it?

  30. Interestingly, in St. Louis in 1953, Sportsman’s Park was sold along with the Cardinals baseball team to Anheuser Busch, which renamed the stadium after AB’s president to Busch Stadium. When that park was replaced, the new stadium was called Busch Memorial Stadium, and it retained that traditional name after the team and stadium were sold in 1996. When the current stadium was built in 2006, it was given a corporate purchased name that coincided with the traditional, historic names of Cardinals staduims: Busch Stadium.

    So while the Cardinals’ stadium is not one of those 11 that didn’t sell naming rights to a corporation, it still has the traditional name for a Cardinals stadium since 1953.

    1. Generalizing football so a given game is played by n teams might be a bizarre exercise to contemplate. (I’m not sure how you’d do for baseball.) At least more fun than going to an event at “Guaranteed Rate”. Ugh.

  33. Yes, it was a very smart move to give the stadium an awful nickname by changing a single letter. They should have learned from those smart enough to change the name of Puck-Man to Pac-Man.

    1. Ug. Meant “a name that could be made into an awful nickname by changing a single letter.”

  34. In the 25-odd year history of the Ottawa Senators, they have played in The Palladium,the Corel Centre, Scotiabank Place, and The Canadian Tire Centre, without moving. No-one knows what to call it these days. Everyone (the public, anyway,) always seems to be about two names behind

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