No doubt, the last few years in the American economy have been awful. Millions have lost their jobs and been unable to find new work. Many have been forced out of their homes, unable to pay mortgages or keep up with expenses. We’re recovering, we’re told, but it doesn’t always feel that way.
Now that I’ve bummed you out just before the holiday weekend, I want to mention one tiny bit of good news that we can perhaps attribute to our economic doldrums. Corporations are cutting back on their co-opting of the Dallas-Fort Worth sports world. With Addison-based Pizza Hut dropping its sponsorship from the soccer stadium up in Frisco that will soon only formerly be known as Pizza Hut Park, three of our four major-league professional sports venues are named for their teams rather than whatever company offered the most money for the naming rights.
And the fourth is called the American Airlines Center. Dare we pretend that we have a hope that AA’s recent bankruptcy might lead it to get out of its naming deal, so that we might instead attend games in the Stars-Mavericks Multipurpose Center, or (better yet) New Reunion Arena?
Of course we dare pretend. We’re not deluding ourselves. We realize that this break from watching the Rangers play at someplace called something like Ameriquest Field is temporary. And we don’t entirely blame the ownership for taking any money that might show up on the table. (Yu Darvish isn’t going to come cheap, after all.) We’re just saying: it’s nice.
Nice that the Cowboys don’t play in O.co Coliseum. Nice that we don’t have read about Jobing.com Arena or the KFC Yum! Center regularly in the Morning News or Star-Telegram sports sections. Advertising belongs in the pages of magazines, not soiling the memories of our treasured ticket stubs.
Sure, the same can’t be said about some of our other Dallas entertainment venues, but in most conversations, don’t we still refer to Superpages.com Center Gexa Energy Pavilion as “Starplex” anyway?
