The Name Remains the Same

Around this time next year, the New York Yankees will begin playing home games in a new stadium. Now, some people have a problem with this change, as is to be expected, but I choose to see it as a good thing… we need updated facilities and more leg room (our poor knees!) and besides… it’s only just across the street.

But I, like so many other fans, were very afraid of what would happen with the naming rights. Of course it will always be “Yankee Stadium” but it seemed very unlikely that the Yanks would pass on the money that comes with corporate sponsorship. I truly expected to see something like “Yankee Stadium at JPMorgan Chase Park” or something like that. I think most realistic fans knew that it was likely with a stadium price tag in the BILLIONS of dollars.

Well in yet another development that has put a huge smile on my face, the Yankees have announced that tradition and history are more important than sponsorship; that the long history of understated consistency would carry over to this new era… the new stadium will NOT be sponsored and will remain, simply the iconic “Yankee Stadium”. Oh Happy Day.

“You don’t re-name the White House or the Grand Canyon,” Lonn Trost said Thursday. Moreover, the Yankees COO said the construction cost will exceed the announced $830 million by a half billion. In the name of tradition, the successor to The House That Ruth Built and John Lindsay refurbished will cost $1.3 billion to build.The cost is for the Yankees to calculate, meet and privately lament.

“We’ll make it up some way,” said Trost. Their public won’t care about that anymore come 2009, when the gates open for the first time, than it cared about Derek Jeter’s salary the night he sailed into the boxes in ‘04. The name of the park does matter, though.

It’s nice to know that fans and management are mostly on the same page with this one.

~ by lisa on February 8, 2008.