I really don’t understand all the outrage about this. It isn’t like the company bought the naming rights not intending to get anything out of it. It is advertising. I don’t know the true benefits of naming rights in regards to how well it does gaining customers/brand recognition but one would assume it has benefits otherwise nobody would do it. You don’t see anybody getting angry about companies that recieved bailout funds advertising on billboards or on tv, why should it be any different for stadium naming rights?

” I’ll go a step further and guess that if someone really wanted to take a fine-toothed comb to Citigroup’s books, they’d find things way more outrageous than the money currently slated to go to the Mets”

Of course there would be.  But think about this a bit more sophisticatedly:  the naming rights are symbolic of all those things, just like the corporate jets are symbolic.  Just because they’re not talking about things the way *you* want to, doesn’t mean they’re not discussing big issues.

@ GregE,“why should it be any different for stadium naming rights?”  Because millionaire baseball players and billionaire franchise owners are obvious and easy targets.

I don’t follow US politics (although my 7 year old wants to go see Obama when he comes to town this month, I don’t think he understands that all he’ll see is a motorcade but I digress) but this Kucinich guy (I know he was mayor of Cleveland when it went bust but have no opinion on if he was to blame) has been way out in front on this.  He’s been stickin it to the Yanks, Mets, Bloomberg et al over the PILOT funding of the new stadiums for some time now.  No doubt he is an opportunistic ***, can’t see how politics in your country would be much different than up here.

I keep harping on this but wait til folks notice that BofA has their brand all over the new Yankee Stadium…then this story will blow up BIG TIME.

Phil is exactly right.  They knew about this deal when they were giving out the money.  Why is it a big deal now?  Why did they give them the money in the first place?

Well I suspect that stadium naming rights are a lousy advertising investments—in general I think advertising without a call to action is probably a waste, and I haven’t been able to find any sort of evidence to suggest that this kind of advertising pays off.

Having said that, it’s like that episode of Frasier where he lends Roz some money and then freaks out at what he thinks she’s spending it on.  He finally blows up at her, only to find out that most of his assumptions were wrong anyway, and really he told her to use it on whatever she needed to.

What is Citi’s total advertising budget?  I suspect $20m/yr isn’t that significant a piece of it.  Is Congress passing judgment on the rest of Citi’s advertising budget?  No?  Why?

(We know why: because print buys and the like aren’t sexy targets.)

“in the event they welsh on the deal”

i take offense to that, but at least they didn’t jew on the deal..or gyp anybody.