November 08, 2012

Horse 1398 - The Generic Company Name Stadium


I suppose that as a fan of sport I should really care about the names of stadia but because some multi-million or billion dollar company has paid to stick their name all over them, the truth is that I don't.

If Sydney FC are playing at Aussie Stadium, I still have no idea where the heck it is. I know where the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Sydney Football Stadium are but Aussie Stadium doesn't tell me anything.
I haven't even got a clue where the Telstra Stadium or Dome are and I'm not entirely sure which city they're in either or even if they are the same thing or not.

Docklands, the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium and the "G" are all pretty obvious and even the strangely named "Gabba" which is in the southern Brisbane suburb of Wollongabba still gives a solid indication of where it is.
The WACA isn't immediately obvious until you find out that it stands for the Western Australian Cricket Association, in which case it can be in no other place than Perth because there's vast expanses of diddly-squat in the rest of Western Australia, so it can't very well be anywhere else.
You'd have to be off your trolley not to guess where the Adelaide Oval is and even if the name Bellerive  Oval doesn't immediately jump out at you, you can guess that it must be in a suburb called Bellerive in some city somewhere.

Even to this day, I still am not entirely sure which one of the two big tennis venues on the same complex is the Vodafone Arena and although I have gotten used to the idea that Optus Oval is actually Princes Park, I still can't find it on a road-map but Princes Park is that green blobby thing in Carlton.
During the current A-League season, I've again heard that teams play at Suncorp Stadium. Yes I admit that I eventually learnt that it is Lang Park but I still don't know what was wrong with the name Lang Park. Queensland Rugby League had spent the best part of a century writing the name of Lang Park into legend and even 30 odd seasons of State of Origin football has meant that Lang Park is a formidable name but Suncorp sounds more like the name of a preschool with pictures of bunnies and kittens on the walls than the place where peoples faces are thrust violently into the turf.

I make mention of this because when the Central Coast Mariners ripped apart Sydney FC 7-2, the ABC which as a rule doesn't mention the name of a sponsored stadium, also didn't mention the name of the Central Coast's home ground. I've even stood in both the northern end and southern flanks of the venue but still have no idea whatsoever of what the heck it is called.
Someone must have paid to put their name all over it but what is the point of spending all that money if it achieves nothing?

Even if you spend lots money trying to rename a stadium, people are still mostly going to call it something based on where it is.
The Arsenal Stadium was never called that for its entire history and was always referred to as Highbury. The Liverpool Football Ground is always called Anfield or sometimes Fortress Anfield if the commentary wants to build up the hype and to this day the stadium in Homebush in Sydney is always called Sydney Olympic Park irrespective of who decides to put their name on it. I hear that some company has sort of tried in vain to put their name on the Showground when the GWS Giants play there but I don't think that the name will take.
If the increasingly unlikely to be built, 41,000 seat venue at Doonside ever gets the go ahead, I don't think that the name Blacktown International Sportsground would ever catch on but my suggestion for the name "Bogandome" probably would catch on because it describes the region so well. It certainly wouldn't the name of a firm which is subject to change every time a contract comes up for renewal.

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