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19 September 2008

Goodbye, McAfee

Say it with me now: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

Feel better? You might knowing that the stadium whose original name, above, was changed to Network Associates Coliseum and then McAfee Coliseum, is reverting back to the original after McAfee's naming rights contract ended yesterday. And to think that I unknowingly attended that final game. I didn't even get a souvenir!

While the naming rights, at $1.3 million per year, were a pittance compared to newer facilities, that money couldn't have hurt with the bottom line, especially considering the outstanding debt on the facility. I was told once years ago that had the A's moved out, McAfee had early termination rights. McAfee's shares have grown fairly steadily since the dot-com bust, but their disinterest in renewing the deal says a ton about how ineffective it was for their marketing efforts. It'll be interesting to see what happens with future broadcasts and the mention of the stadium's name. Will those bright red "McAfee" logos on the backs of the scoreboards be repainted soon or after the football season is over?

As for a naming rights successor - I wouldn't count on it.

3 comments:

Georob said...

Why not Cisco?

Since they're already committed to the A's future(supposedly), they could get a head start by putting their name on the Coliseum until the Fremont move takes place. Perhaps they might even be allowed to call it "Cisco Field" as opposed to "Cisco Coliseum"

Either way, it seems to me to be a good move to ensure continuity with the upcoming move. But if Cisco won't bite, how about Oracle extending it's identity to both arena and stadium?

Anonymous said...

I think the issue here is that companies do not want to have their name branded and associated with a, well... crappy stadium. People will then associate the Stadium with the Company. If the stadium sucks, the Company probably sucks too.

And I think Cisco will just stick with the new stadium because it will be "New" and High Tech, the thing they live on.

Although it would be somewhat funny if they used one of their subsidiary companies for the naming of the Coliseum.

Linksys Coliseum? lol.

Daniel Schulman said...

Maybe they can get Clorox to sponsor in exchange for cleaning supplies.

They could make it the cleanest facility in the country!