Blue Jays' home is Rogers Centre Ownership changes name of former SkyDome By Spencer Fordin / MLB.com
TORONTO -- The company that owns the Blue Jays changed the name of the team's stadium on Wednesday, opting for Rogers Centre instead of the former SkyDome title.
Rogers Communications Inc. recently purchased the stadium for approximately $25 million in Canadian funds, adding the domed stadium to the company's standing ownership of the Jays and their flagship station on both television and radio. The name change was rumored from the outset of the deal, which was announced in late November.
Paul Godfrey, the team's president and CEO, promised extensive changes to the stadium from the moment of the sale. He said the Blue Jays would immediately look into aesthetic improvements, including new turf and a new JumboTron. He also expressed a desire to paint over some of the concrete expanse, in order to give the 55,000-seat stadium a new look.
Some of those improvements are already in progress and will likely be unveiled before the season begins. The former SkyDome will turn 16 years old during the season, and Godfrey remembers when it was just a vision and a down payment.
"When I was the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto in February 1984, I know Metro Toronto put in the first $30 million. If someone had told me then, the price for the total building would be cheaper than the first down payment, one would have been a little amazed," he said at the time of the purchase.
"If I was to roll back the clock, I would have advised Mr. Rogers not to buy the team unless he owned the facility. In order to control the experience, you should be in control of both."
Fucking bastards. Was it so essential to change the longstanding, well-known name of a well-known Toronto landmark just because they own it? . If it were practical for me to do so, I'd cancel my internet and cable subscriptions to Rogers...
Up yours, Ted Rogers
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I am so sick of corporate-named sports facilities. I still can't believe they turned Candlestick Park into 3Com Park. What the fuck kind of name is that?
And if Rogers wants to use the SkyDome for advertising, why can't they just blaster their fucking ads all over it? Why do they have to change the name? Argh.
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Darth Wong wrote:I am so sick of corporate-named sports facilities.
I hear ya. I feel it shows contempt from the corporation to the public, and as I understand it these corporations usually finance the construction of these facilities and so can name them whatever the hell they want, but what the fuck kind of name is 'The TelstraDome' or 'Vodafone Arena'? Jesus.
It's bizarre they don't name them something more appealing. You'd think it'll be in their best interests to offer this to the public, as a good nature act or something, but whatever.
The problem is that during the 1990's the general public started to wise up to local governments publicly funding sports teams stadiums to the team then earning millions of dollars in profit. Corporations saw an enormous opportunity to brand their products by permanently changing the name of the facilities by purchasing them and taking over its stewardship or building new facilities. In Los Angeles, the Lakers play at the Staples center, and BTW from the air, the building is designed to look like a giant stapler.
I don't like it either that they change the names of these stadiums. I do however understand that from a business perspective why they do it. I don't know who this guy Rogers is or Rogers Communications? However, obviously the goal is that every-time an event occurs at the former SkyDome he gets the Free Press and branding opportunity by simply mentioning where it is held on TV, Radio, and print.
Not that it will help the Blue Jays. They should have focused on resigning players rather than stupid optics like "Rogers Center". How could the retards let Carlos Delgado go, he deserves to have half the payroll of the entire fucking team. Now that we have no power, Jays will have an incredibly dismal record. I can't count all the times Carlos has saved us. He was even willing to take a paycut to stay in Toronto, but tell me would you stay in your current job if your salary was cut by a third? It isn't Carlos' fault, it is the stupid management and Toronto baseball will suffer. Only a matter of time before the Jays move.
Fuck, so now we have the Air Canada Centre and the Rogers Centre?
Hopefully no one buys up and renames the CN Tower.
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Say, do you want it to be a threesome with your wife? Or a foursome with your wife and sister-in-law? I'm up for either.
'Rogers Centre' .... sounds like a rehab clinic or mental institution ........ hmmm, well yeah, the Jays play there .....
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aerius wrote:Hopefully no one buys up and renames the CN Tower.
Which reminds me, who owns the CN Tower nowadays? I doubt Canadian National still does, because when CN was being groomed for privatization in the early '90s, all it's "non-core" (non railroad) businesses were cut loose and sold off, including it's telecommunications division...
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HAB: Crew-Served Weapons Specialist
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." --P.J. O'Rourke
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --J.S. Mill
Falkenhayn wrote:Will Fenway and Yankee stadium be the last holdouts? I can't help but think so.
All of a sudden I have this bizarre hope the Twins never move out of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome...
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Falkenhayn wrote:Will Fenway and Yankee stadium be the last holdouts? I can't help but think so.
All of a sudden I have this bizarre hope the Twins never move out of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome...
Wait, do you actually call the thing the "Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome"?
Ooh, a question I've had for a while. Whatever happened to Enron Stadium or whatever sporting facility it was that had Enron's name on it? I suppose the place is still there, but with a new name.
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Mayabird wrote:[
Ooh, a question I've had for a while. Whatever happened to Enron Stadium or whatever sporting facility it was that had Enron's name on it? I suppose the place is still there, but with a new name.
It's called Minute Maid Park now, and it's in Houston.
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Mayabird wrote:
Ooh, a question I've had for a while. Whatever happened to Enron Stadium or whatever sporting facility it was that had Enron's name on it? I suppose the place is still there, but with a new name.
It's called Minute Maid Park now, and it's in Houston.
Wow, that's just...so stupid-sounding that it's actually really funny.
Well, at least it isn't a testiment to Ted Turner's ego. *sigh*
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
What are they trying to accomplish by naming a park after a product or company? Because I don't think many people are going to go to Minute Maid Park and think to themselves "This stadium makes me thirsty. I'll have some Minute Maid pink lemonade".
It isn't an entirely new phenomenon. After all, Wrigley Field in Chicago is named for the chewing gum magnate P.K. Wrigley; the Cubs' field in its Federal League days was originally called Wheegman Park after the owner of the Whales. The old Tiger Stadium in Detroit temporarily had the name Navin Field hung on it after another corporate bigwig in the 30s but the name fell into disuse after only a very short time. The Cincinatti Reds once played in Crosley Field, after the team owner who also ran the Crosley Broadcasting Co. The Cardinals still play in Busch Stadium and will be even after moving into the new park next year, and we all know who that is.
The renaming of not only stadiums but whole sporting events after corporate sponsors, however, has been getting progressively obnoxious since the mid-80s. 3Comm Park is bad enough. Anybody remember the Poulon Weed-Eater Independence Bowl or the IBM OS2 Warp Bowl?
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. If it were practical for me to do so, I'd cancel my internet and cable subscriptions to Rogers...
