Names sweeter than 'The Rose Garden'

I e-mailed the following to The Oregonian's Letters section this morning after reading that the Portland Trailblazers are in the process of selling the naming rights to the Rose Garden.

Missing from the letter is mention of the irony of Billionaire Paul Allen's trying the squeeze every last dime out of his franchise.

Here's the letter:


Re: “Blazers try to sell arena name” Jan. 15, 2013.

Would a Rose Garden by any other name smell as sweet? Does Jeld Wen Field smell as sweet as Civic Stadium?

Names matter.

Don't believe it? Try “Trashco Arena” or "1-800-Got Junk Stadium" on for size. Or how about following Denver’s indirect support of childhood obesity by naming its facility “Pepsi Center?”

Obviously naming rights have value so how about using the name of an admired Trailblazer to support a worthy, cherished cause?

Thousands of Blazer fans would contribute to the name "Maurice Lucas Stadium." The much admired power forward and mainstay of the Blazer’s championship team died of cancer in 2010. The naming-rights money for Lucas Stadium would go to support cancer research at OHSU. Trailblazer owner Paul Allen, just a year younger than Lucas, should understand as he has suffered his own bouts with cancer. Allen, known for his philanthropy, might even match the fans' contribution.

A final suggestion: Drexler Arena, for the greatest Trailblazer of all. I’m sure fans would donate to a Clyde Drexler Foundation dedicated to a worthy local cause.

Names like these smell of civic sweetness — sweeter, even, than a rose.

Rick Seifert
Portland

A point guard named Burger King

We’ve become accustomed to the naming rights sell-off game.

So now Paul Allen is auctioning off the naming rights to The Rose Garden.

Yawnnnnnn.

Allen, already a billionaire many times over, is hoping to reap millions by putting another corporate name in our faces.

Why are naming rights so valuable in marketing?

• We, the public, are forced to mouth the words “Wells Fargo Arena” (or Frito Lay, or Nike, or Adidas) every time we refer to the venue.

• The name gets mentioned repeatedly in the press. Every sports story, every sports broadcast, carries at least one mention.

• The “Rose Quarter” district, much of it belonging to the public, becomes the “Big Corporate Name” district.

• Freeway exit signs, again, owned by the public, become virtual billboards that we the people will receive zero compensation for.

We’ve seen the sell-outs take place around the country in less proud cities than ours.

But it’s here in Portland too. It started in the public sector where the proudly named Civic Stadium became a name-ad for Portland General Electric, PGE Park.

Now the Portland parks bureau is hiring a full-time sponsorship salesperson. Nike logos are on park basketball courts. Pepsi logos are on community center scoreboards. Piece by piece, the cash-starved public commons is being commercialized and privatized — and the public has grown increasingly accepting.

Of course several of us skeptics have suggested jokingly that Portland make the big re-naming leap and sell off “Portland.” Change the maps and road signs and call the place “Starbucks” or “Wal-Mart” or “Pepsi-Town,” all in exchange for a few million each year. Twenty years from now, we may all be Starbuckians or Pepsians.

But back to Allen and his Trail Blazers, who, according to The Oregonian, lost $25 million last year (the front office disputes the number but not the red ink).

Here’s a way to get in the black, Paul. Why not sell off the names of the players? Why does Brandon Roy have to be “Brandon Roy” or LaMarcus Aldridge “LaMarcus Aldridge” when they could be “Wells Fargo” and “Burger King”?

Think of the great product names that you could slap on a star point guard for a cool million or two. “Key Bank,” “Frito Lay,” “Kettle Chips,” and “Fred Meyer,” “Chevrolet Malibu” are just a few that come to mind.

Game commentary would be peppered with brand mentions: “Fargo passes into Frito who dribbles over the Wild Oats mid-court line. Lay to Burger. He fakes. A high lob into Kettle. He swings right with a hook over Chevrolet (previously known as Kobe Bryant). It’s up and in! Rip Diet Coke!”

Come’ on, Paul, you haven’t even turned the ignition on in your money machine.

A whole lot of Red Bull

Recently I suggested that Portland's professional soccer team just go by the sponsor's name on the team jerseys and call itself the "Toyotas" since the real name, rumored to be "the Timbers" is nowhere to be found on the uniforms.

Now a Portland soccer fan near and dear to me has alerted me that a Major League Soccer team already has made the leap by actually naming itself after a sponsor.

That would be Red Bull New York. Red Bull, the sponsor, is also an energy drink. So when New York fans chant their team's name, they are also chanting an ad, which in turn is piped out over the TV and radio to thousands, free of charge.

And if that isn't insidious enough, there's an entire soccer league in England that has sold its name to none other than Coca-Cola, hence Coca-Cola League 1.

Before long we may well see cities and even states selling off their names. Beaverton becomes "Niketown." Oregon becomes "Nikeland."

This isn't as bizarre as it sounds. Remember the little eastern Oregon hamlet of Halfway that dropped its name for a year and called itself Half.com, the name of a dot-com company — all for a price?

Then back in 2005, EchoStar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:DISH) and its DISH Network satellite TV service offered free satellite TV dishes and service to residents of any town choosing to rename itself, ready?: "Dish."

And sure enough, a small community in Texas, formerly Clark (pop. 125), cashed in on all those dishes by dubbing itself "Dish."

Another way to put it is that it traded its real world heritage for free access to fantasy.

If I could accept the principle of such a trade (and I can't), from the point of view of both benefit and name, I believe the residents of Dish would have been better off approaching the folks from "Red Bull."

Editorial blind spots

Editorial writing is, by definition, critical, but that doesn’t mean it is beyond criticism.

I’ve written a few editorials in my time. Among the craft's many challenges are word limits and establishing focus.

But focus and brevity shouldn’t result in tunnel vision.

Two examples:

Yesterday’s issue of The Portland Tribune carries an editorial titled “City needs new naming process.” The editorial board worried over whether Interstate Avenue should be renamed for César Chavez, as some in the Hispanic community have argued.

Why not name some parks after Chavez? the editorial board proposed.

The editorial concluded with these words: “Any naming — or renaming — of public places in Portland should help to better define and build a sense of community, while also serving to hone the contributions of worthy individuals. The city of Portland should have a renaming process that serves these goals better than it does today.”

The big blind spot in the editorial is the city’s selling of naming rights. How can an editorial address the “naming” issue without at least considering the decision to rename Civic Stadium “PGE Park.” And what about the other naming rights the city’s parks bureau is geared up to sell?

Hello?

Second example:

In today’s Oregonian, an editorial urges rapid implementation of the State’s stiffer physical education requirements in the schools. The goal is to address “our childhood obesity epidemic.” Twenty-five percent of Oregon’s eighth graders are “overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, and that rate is on the rise,” the editorial notes.

Then the editorial goes on to say that the new PE law “is only the first step.” And what is the next step? More money for PE and pressuring school boards to implement the program.

End of discussion.

What the editorial writers fail to address is the four to five hours each day that the average child spends in front of screens. During those hours, children expend zero calories and are enticed to eat calorie-laden junk food — a huge contributor to childhood obesity and early on-set diabetes.

It’s fine to bulk up PE in the schools, but the average public school graduate will have spent more time in front of television than in the classroom — including the PE classroom.

Fighting childhood obesity begins at home, but you’d never know it reading the editorial.

Swapping names on West Burnside

Last Friday, as I was walking to a Timbers soccer game at PGE Park (OPKA — “once proudly known as” — Civic Stadium), I happened on a surprising, confounding and, finally, fortuitous appellation.

But first, a little history.

Six years ago, City Hall dumped the name “Civic Stadium” and sold the naming rights to the publicly-owned stadium to PGE (Portland General Electric, then owned by Enron — need we say more?). Hence PGE Park. The naming rights sale was part of a back-room renovation deal cut by the Katz administration. The peddling of similar civic names persists here with the Portland parks bureau recently gaining city council approval to sell off the names of parks facilities to corporate high bidders. I’ve written about this abomination before.

Okay, back to my discovery.

It came in the form of the 16-story condominium tower going up directly across West Burnside from the stadium. It’s name, by some stroke of genius, is “The Civic.”

So here we have a civic facility, PGE Park, now named after a monopoly private utility, directly across the street from a private, high-end condominium that has assumed the proud civic name once attached to the civic facility.

(A whimsical possibility is that the condominium’s developers have really named the building after a type of Honda automobile and are quietly taking naming-rights royalties from Honda. Stranger things have happened….)

Anyway, name-wise, things are sorely out of whack on West Burnside.

So here’s a suggestion. Why not do a name swap? The condominium developers could sell their building’s naming rights to PGE in exchange for returning the name “civic” to the city and the stadium. PGE Park is a not half-bad name for a condominium. After all, what’s fair for a proud civic stadium should be equally fair for a tony condominium.

So how will the city keep getting the PGE Park naming-rights money it has come to rely on?

Consider this: Because the condominium is approximately four times the height of Civic Stadium, the “PGE Park” sign atop the new building would be much more visible — and valuable. No doubt city officials have some control over regulating such elevated signs. Therefore they likely have the regulatory leverage to negotiate a deal to ensure that the stadium continues to receive sign money, thanks to the “added value” of the new, far more prominent placement.

Once the name swap is complete, the citizenry will no longer have to mouth a corporate plug in referring to the publicly-owned stadium where Portland’s teams play. No more “They’re playing at PGE Park” or “Do you have directions to PGE Park?” or “I’ll meet you at PGE Park” or "After paying my PGE bill I won't have enough money left to see the game at PGE Park."

Returning to “Civic Stadium” will be something for Portlanders to cheer about.

On drawing blanks at City Hall

Testifying before the Portland City Council, as I did this morning, can be like being a stranger in a strange land.

You are given three minutes to speak your truth—such as it is.

I use the rapid, mildly-in-your-face approach.

Looking down on you from their slightly elevated platform, the mayor and four commissioners listen intently.

A red digital clock counts the seconds on a panel in front of you. 00:00—00:01….2:58—2:59—3:00—bleeeeeeeep.

You finish. The council members stare at you. You stare at them. You hope that you have inspired thought, conviction, an epiphany.

OK, a grunt? A flicker of life?

Anything.

They stare back. Silence.

Your utterances are mere noises.

You leave the hearing table and meld back into the audience.

Next speaker?

On one occasion, I actually drew a question from the five. Vera Katz was mayor then, and I recall the question was hers. I can’t remember what she asked because it didn’t make any difference.

Today I drew blanks.

I was clearly out in la-la land. I was proposing something really, really wild—not selling the naming rights to our parks facilities to Nike or Intel or the Fortune 500.

I mean REALLY!

In fact, this time the commissioners actually seemed to look through me as I spoke.

“Bad policy…bad precedent…bad procedure,” I intoned into their vacuity.

I suggested that the proposed parks naming and sponsorship policies might one day lead to these very city council chambers'—RIGHT HERE! THIS ROOM!—being named after some corporate giant (Jockey Underwear? Exxon/Mobil?)—all in exchange for cash to replace the carpet or repair the roof.

No one blinked.

I returned to my place in the back of the room.

The resultant discussion was largely between the real, and realistic, park staff and the elected commissioners. All are paid. All are worth something to each other. They understand each other. They talk.

One commissioner wanted the parks director to explain how the process could involve the public more. He wondered how the city council would get involved in deciding whether a particular name designation was a good idea. It's not good to name some bucolic park glade after a rapacious CEO with a prison term in his future.

The commissioners and the staff were way beyond policy and into pesky details, like members of some exclusive club. Long ago, it became clear, they became committed to brokering the names of park facilities to corporations and to a recognition-hungry, donor elite—all for maintenance cash.

Somewhere in the last 10 years, while I wasn’t watching, a civic norm—a given—was established. Just the way it’s now given that states can raise cash by promoting gambling—and gambling addiction. Just as it is given that the Portland Trolleys are programmed to audibly announce to riders that the next public stop on the public street is “sponsored by” a travel agent, a bookstore, condominium complex or museum.

Sponsored “trolley stops”? State-sponsored gambling? Park glades named for moguls?

For me, the strange became a little stranger today.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Alert: Naming proposal goes before City Council Wednesday

A while back I alerted readers to Portland Parks and Recreation’s plans to sell or grant naming rights to our public facilities to corporate sponsors or donors.

The “Nike Exercise Room” or the “Victoria’s Secret Swimming Pool” at the Southwest Community Center are two conceivable results.

Of course the same sell-off-the-Commons thinking has left us with “PGE Park.”

So here’s an action alert: This Wednesday, April 11, at 10:30 a.m., the parks bureau’s sponsorship and naming proposals go before the City Council in City Hall.

I’ll be there to testify. I hope you will too.

Here is what I intend to say—more or, as is likely, less…

Mr. Mayor and commissioners:

These proposals should be rejected because they are bad policy and bad precedent. If for some unimaginable reason you don’t find them so, you should reject them because they are couched in fuzzy language and establish inconsistent naming processes devoid of direct public representation.

Bad Policy

The policy underlying these proposals violates the public trust vested in government to safeguard the Commons. The Commons, lest we need to be reminded, consists of those places owned in common—hence the name. The Commons is such places such as public schools, rivers, streets, libraries, and—in the case before the Council—public parks, recreational facilities and community centers.

This nation was birthed in battle waged in and on the Commons—most notably the Lexington Green in 1775.

The Commons, as even these proposals demonstrate in their twisted way, has great value—monetary, historic and symbolic. In fact, the word “commonwealth” reflects that value.

We bestow on the commons names that we likewise value. Once, for instance, we had “a Civic Stadium” and a “Civic Auditorium.” They called us to a valued civic life, to civility, to civilization.

And what, may we ask, does a “PGE Park” connote? It shows that we are so devoid of financial creativity and fiscal resolve that we are willing to sell off the good names of The Commons.

And that is exactly what these proposals before you aim to do as well.

When we citizens vote for bond measures to improve the parks and construct community centers, we have no intention of providing, in the jargon of the “naming rights industry,” “opportunities” for corporations to impose their names on our common, civic treasure. Instead, we expect our elected leaders to anticipate and institute legitimate, uncompromising and engaging ways of maintaining public facilities. That is the job we elect you to do.

Bad Precedent

I fear that unless you act against these proposals today, the PGE Park naming and parks corporate namings and renamings will be established as precedents for more of the same.

If you don’t stop this practice once and for wall, what next?

Would the City Council allow Pioneer Courthouse Square to be named after a certain Seattle-based coffee giant? Would you permit a park glade to be named after a grass seed or fertilizer purveyor? Could the name of these very council chambers go on the block to a sneaker company or an undergarment manufacturer—all so that the floors are swept and the walls painted?

Bad process

Those presenting these proposals maintain that they have built in protections to prevent “inappropriate” naming and renaming.

But the guidelines before you are fuzzy and subjective, and the processes are inconsistent and exclude the most important stakeholders of all—Commons users and owners.

A few examples:

There is no consistency between the way sponsorship names are vetted and the way donors’ names are reviewed.

Large “sponsorship opportunities” (note the uncritical acceptance of the language of the trade) are approved by an unspecified “Senior Management Team.” After that, based on recommendations by the “Sponsorship Coordinator,” the “Marketing and Business Development Manager” decides what companies get to sponsor which “opportunities.” There is no provision what-so-ever for representation, or even say, in the process from the public.

Names for donors—corporate or otherwise—go through a committee. But that five-member committee has no member from outside the city bureaus and commissions, save a member of the Oregon Historical Society. Oh, “relevant” neighborhood associations (whatever “relevant” means in this context) can comment. An obvious question is: Why aren’t representatives of parks users on the committee? Indeed why shouldn’t they represent a majority of its membership?

The proposals are full of “in-the-eye-of-the-beholder” statements and general fuzziness:

The donation proposal says that “on occasion” the significance of a donation may “warrant acknowledging a gift by naming.” On WHAT occasion? The proposal doesn’t say.

The same proposal says, “Historical or commonly used place names will be preserved WHENEVER POSSIBLE.” What does that mean? Why doesn’t it simply say the names will be preserved PERIOD? When might it not be possible to preserve these honored names? Presumably when enough money is put on the table.

The same proposal says that the naming of a new park or facility will “engender a strong positive image.” Positive image to whom? Who is to decide? What if it engenders no image at all? What about the difference between “image” and reality? They often are not the same.

The proposal says that the new name “shall not result in UNDUE commercialization….” Many argue, as I am, that all commercialization is “undue” when it comes to the Public Commons.

On and on it goes.

For all these reasons, these proposals should clearly be rejected out of hand.

OPB: "Nike Community Center" possible

It seems that we might get stuck with the "Nike Southwest Community Center" after all.

Parks officials assured a group of us a week ago that the proposed Portland Parks and Recreation corporate sponsorship/naming rights rule wouldn't allow for plastering a corporate name or logo on community centers.

Oh yeah?

Here is über-activist Amanda Fritz, who generally favors corporate naming rights sponsorships, quoted in an OPB story that aired yesterday.

Amanda Fritz is a longtime community activist who lost a recent bid for city council. She has weighed in on the policy and says there is room for a corporate logo in a parks building.

Amanda Fritz: "But there isn't a potential to have a 'Nike Park' anyplace in Portland. There might be the potential under the sponsorship policy to have a 'Nike Recreation Center,' or something like that."

Today is the last day to comment on whether you want our parks commercialized and our community centers named for corporations. You can comment here.

Block branding in the parks

Before delving into this, I want to give you the place to comment on Portland Park and Recreation’s (PPR) proposal to sell naming rights to parks facilities. You have until this Friday.

Do it. Or read this, and then DO IT.

The alternative could be “Jockey” gym at the Southwest Community Center, or park swings brought to our children by “Nestles.”

I wish I could be as sanguine as my fellow blogger and activist Amanda Fritz about last week’s City Hall meeting on this sordid matter.

I found the two-hour session troubling in several ways.

Start with the fact that neither Parks Director Zari Santer nor Parks Commissioner Dan Salzman was present.

Then note that the meeting was the public’s one chance to comment in person on the proposal and its mushy language.

You’d have to be a PPR groupie to know that “the Citywide Parks Team,” the convening group, is not a closed cadre of parks managers but rather a diverse gathering of, well, parks groupies.

So when it was announced that the draft “Sponsorship Policy” would be presented and discussed, I figured I’d be an outsider looking in.

I wasn’t. That was reassuring until I realized that this would be a Q&A rather than a wholesome debate about underlying policy.

Those presenting the draft and fielding questions tried to give corporate sponsorships a “feel good” feeling. How wonderful it was to “form partnerships” with Nike and others, and “to leverage assets” (the public’s assets, by the way) and “develop diverse revenue streams” and “create win-win situations.”

The staff presenters often blurred the distinction between sponsors, who contract for something (a naming rights, primarily) in return for their cash “partnership,” and donors, who give with little (and even no) expectation of acknowledgement.

Definitions and words are important. At one point we were told that Columbia Sportswear had “adopted” Sellwood Park to help maintain it. Very nice, but just who is putting our parks up for “adoption”? Columbia Sportswear, a true donor, is to be commended, but I suggested a better choice of words lest we put the entire city up for corporate “adoption” of a worse kind—specifically naming rights sponsorship.

The chief presenter was PPR Marketing & Business Development Manager Bob Schulz, an affable fellow with a down-home PR manner. But when we got down to cases, he turned terse and defensive:

• What about Portland’s naming rights poster child, PGE Park? It isn’t part of PPR.
• Does its name create a city precedent? No, it was ad hoc.
• What about the large Nike logos on parks basketball courts Nike paid to have resurfaced? We wouldn’t do it that way if we had it to do again.
• What about Pepsi signs on scoreboards at community centers? We needed the contribution because we hadn’t budgeted for them. It won’t happen again.

And yet, here he, the "Marketing & Business Development Manager," was saying PPR needs corporate sponsorships (read "money") to keep the parks solvent.

The fact is that as a society we are starving what many call The Commons. It is vulnerable to an industry salivating at naming rights opportunities. These public facilities are indeed assets—assets to be taken over by corporate America, as the public and its representatives capitulate. The schools are in the same situation. Witness the Portland schools’ current struggles to extract itself from junk food deals with Coca-Cola.

We really are putting The Commons up for corporate adoption. Sadly the money once available to schools or parks is increasingly going to fight wars or pay war profiteers, or make up for what the super-rich no longer pay—and now spend on private jets and third or fourth homes.

I imagine a day a decade or so from now when our children won’t know that parks facilities or schools or civic stadiums (we had one here once, remember?) are owned by the public. They won’t know that Mommy and Daddy really do pay taxes to keep them running.

At last week’s meeting I suggested to the PPR staff that before they sell off The Commons, they might come to us, the people, to see whether we really want it sold off to commercialism and corporatism. Tell us what it will cost to avoid “corporate adoption” and ask us to pay for it. My guess is we will. At least we should have the choice.

I also suggested that the entire City of Portland, not just Parks and Recreation, needs to have a policy on corporate sponsorships and naming rights. Without that policy what is to prevent the renaming of everything owned by the public. “Viagra” City Hall? “Camels” Waterfront Park? The “Spandex” Morrison Bridge. We could tattoo Nike logos on the commissioners’ foreheads—all for a price.

Finally, I reminded them of a quaint old saying: “Virtue is its own reward.” It is famously reflected on an inscription on the Skidmore Fountain, whose name has not been sold off, yet.

Virtue, in the form of volunteerism and good citizenship, is “the riches of the city.”

Corporations in the naming rights hunt (and, believe me, that hunt is everywhere) might muzzle their marketing departments long enough to embrace the idea of virtue being its own reward. Imagine, giving something simply because it was the right thing to do….

Again public comment will be taken here
through this Friday. Feb. 23. I urge you to write that the selling of naming rights in any part of The Commons should be prohibited in the City of Portland.

Media Literacy group wants The Commons protected from commercialism

In a post two weeks ago, I wrote about the Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation's proposal to sell naming rights to our public parks facilities in exchange for corporate money.

Are you really willing to accept the The Pepsi Community Center in Gabriel Park?

Now the board of the Northwest Media Literacy Center has taken a position against PPR's proposal and sent a letter of opposition to the City Council. I’m on the board and helped draft the proposal.

Unless you really intend for your tax dollars to provide billboard and other logo and slogan space for the likes of Nike, Pepsi and The Gap, I urge you to write the council (Mayor Potter and Commissioners Sten, Salzman, Leonard and Adams) as well as Parks Director Zari Santner to oppose the measure. The public comment period ends Friday, Feb 23.

Here’s what the NMLC board resolution says:

The Board of the Northwest Media Literacy Center (NMLC) urges the Portland City Council to reject a Portland Parks and Recreation proposal to legitimize and allow corporate sponsorships and commercialism in our parks and public facilities. The proposed policy would result in the selling of naming rights to public-owned park property and would allow commercial messages in our parks and recreation facilities.

• The NMLC board believes that parks facilities are part of the public Commons, which should be a “safe haven” from intrusive and rampant commercialization.
• We further believe it is the responsibility of the Portland City Council and the City’s bureaus to safeguard the entire Commons from commercial display, including sponsorship announcements, corporate naming, trademarks, logos and other commercial messages.
• NMLC is committed to teaching people—including public servants—to critically assess media messages in order to understand their impact on our communities, our society and our planet.