US member of the House of Representatives, and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank has said stadium naming rights deals are “ego boosts”, and not “real marketing”.
“Marketing expenses should be for real marketing, not ego boosts, which is what I think naming rights are,” said Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, quoted by The New York Times newspaper.
“Important men, in particular, like to hang out and ingratiate themselves with sports figures, and after the fact try to figure out how to make sense of the sponsorships as marketing or economic development.”
In an interview about ailing bank Citigroup’s 20-year, $400 million naming rights deal with the New York Mets baseball deal, Frank said, “We can’t force them to break an existing contract” with the Mets, Frank said. “But we can put in some pretty strict conditions on them going forward.” Citigroup is currently negotiating a third US government bailout, in addition to existing $45 billion funds already received, that would increase government ownership to 30 to 40 per cent, from about 8 per cent currently.
