The Contra Costa Times reports that the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum -- home of the A’s and the Raiders -- will be renamed Overstock.com Coliseum. The deal will earn the county $1.2 million a year for the next six years. I have two issues with this:
1. Anyone really betting that the Coliseum is going to last six more years? I mean, even Bud Selig’s committees have a shelf life, and I have a hard time seeing the A’s plying their trade in that joint in 2017. From what I understand the Raiders are itching to get one of those fancy new stadiums too, be it in Northern California or elsewhere.
2. I’m not sure why companies continue to buy naming rights for previously-built and previously-named stadiums, because people are just going to use the old names anyway. Or they’re going to use cutesy nicknames like “The O,” which is the opening sentence to the linked article. Or Surplus Stadium or whatever. Indeed, after this post, I can pretty much guarantee that no HardballTalk writer will use the name “Overstock.com Coliseum” in a post -- at least in a non-mocking post -- and fans will continue to call the place whatever they’ve been calling it for the past 40+ years.
But hey, I never said I understood business.