Naming rights have their limits.
With the World Cup coming and FIFA insistent on specific, soccer-friendly playing surfaces, it also made demands about the exterior of the various American venues in which the games will be played.
In places like Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, the company that pays more than $10 million per year through 2042 will have its name and logo disappear for the next few months.
Via Front Office Sports, workers are covering the large Mercedes-Benz logo with a World Cup tarp. And the venue will be known for the duration of the tournament as Atlanta Stadium.
It’s a strange move. It’s never been known as “Atlanta Stadium.” It will be, for a few months. And then it will go back to being Mercedes-Benz Stadium, as if the change never happened.
Unfortunately for NFL players, the high-quality grass that will be implemented for the World Cup will also go back to the fake stuff. As if the change to the preferred surface never happened.
But that’s the power of FIFA. To get the matches, the proprietors of the various NFL venues had to bend over backward, in multiple ways. And they gladly did it.
