What's in a Name?

Today’s blog is brought to you by Subway, Lays Cheddar Cheese and Onion Potato Chips, Acebutolol prescription beta-blocker and Miller Lite (so please, excuse any spelling errors).

Cynicism aside, corporate sponsorship dominates the world of professional sports. To sit here and pontificate on the proliferation of Visa Halftime Shows, Rolaid Relief Awards and Ex-Lax end-zones would be a redundant waste of time.

Sponsorship exists.
Sponsorship isn’t going anywhere.
Deal with it.

But as Sam Zell prepares to sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field, one of the game’s (and country’s) most important landmarks stands threatened.

Yes, I am fully aware that the name itself is one of corporate sponsorship, but it’s corporate sponsorship from almost a century ago. The ballpark at the corner of Clark and Addison is so entrenched in the American consciousness and history (Jesus, I sound like a voiceover in a Ken Burns movie) that any name change would be an imposed commercial and would take at least a generation to be fully accepted.

And don’t talk to me about compromises. Wrigley Field at Chase Bank Plaza is not Wrigley Field (and that hypothetical would be the ultimate slap in the face to Chicagoans still fostering a Second City inferiority complex – it was not too long ago that Chase Bank was Chase Manhattan). If a location is historically significant and can be bought and sold, how is a warped version of the Wrigley name any different from saying the Battle of Bull Run at Harold’s Chicken Shack Meadow? (There’s a really nerdy joke in there. Do some research)

Chicago has had nothing but bad luck with stadiums in recent years. New Comiskey had to undergo seven years of renovation, becoming US Cellular Field in the process, an acceptable, albeit characterless place to watch a game. Solider Field almost got renamed (to the chagrin of soldiers everywhere), but instead got transformed into a leftover set piece from Independence Day.

Wrigley however added bleacher seats after the 2005 season and it was widely considered a success. This is due, in part, to the strict construction laws that govern Wrigley because it is considered a historical landmark.

Zell hopes to “relax” Wrigley’s historical status to allow the name to be sold. Blair Kamin at the Trib pointed out the problem this presents for the city, far beyond sports. If Mayor Daley allows the historical status to be jeopardized, it sets a precedent for other historical landmarks around the city to relax their own statuses.

Here’s hoping the mayor doesn’t set precedent.