This analysis stinks.

It all comes down to whether you think $400 million for naming rights is a good deal for a company.  If you think its a good advertising deal, you will approach this one way.  If you think its a collassal waste and more of a $400 million perk instead of advertising, you will approach it another.

If there really is the notion that there is $400 million worth of advertising value that Citi is getting, few would object.  Most people view it as maybe $1 million worth of advertising and $399 million worth of Citi throwing money away to glorify itself and probably acquire some sweet box seats for executives.

If you think its good advertising, its obviously better to pay $400 million and get something instead of spending $150 for nothing.

If you think its terrible advertising but a sweet perk for the city braintrust….then its better to burn the $150 and get the other $250 back.

Personally…given how bad the judgement of Citigroup has been over the last 16+ months, I’d think that the opinion of any random guy off the street is more valuable than the decisions made by the Citi braintrust.

We may have lost hundreds of billions and didn’t understand what we were doing…but trust us, this $400 million investment in stadium advertising is a brilliant move!!

I was going to bring up “sunk cost” as well. Let’s assume that the $150 mil is a good number for the breakup fee. That’s now sunk, right? So the real question is “is the advertising worth $250 mil?” If not, then getting nothing for $150 mil is indeed better than getting too little for $400 mil.

Of course, my guess is that the answer is still “no way in hell is it worth it,” but what do I know?

“Taxpayers’ Field” anyone?
Too bad “Citizens’ Bank Ballpark” already exists, because it’s a perfect description.

This is really easy.  The government should let Citibank go out of business, as they desperately need to do, instead of propping them up with 300+ billion in support like they have done to date.  You could start a brand-new, much nicer bank than Citibank for $300B+.  Then the Mets can get in line at bankruptcy court just like everyone else (I imagine something similar happened with Enron), and come to grips with the fact that no one is paying anything like $400M for naming rights these days and, uh, by the way, consequent to that and a lot of other cold harsh reality, the Mets are worth a lot less than they were 12 months ago.  Welcome to the new world.