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Meet you at the Mac?
Starting this summer, that could become the official call for East Bay sports
fans to get out to the ballpark.
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Network Associates Coliseum, home of the Oakland Athletics and Raiders, will become McAfee Coliseum sometime this summer, the latest in a flurry of sports-facility name changes that have left some local sports fans wondering if there's such a thing as a home-field advantage if you can't remember the name of the home field.
"To most fans, I think it is and always will be the Oakland Coliseum,"
said Jennifer Medeiros, co-chairwoman of the Oakland A's Fan Coalition.
Keeping it simple, she said, avoids confusion caused by the blizzard of branding
opportunities companies have seized on by fusing their identities with ballparks,
concert halls and hockey rinks. "It also goes to show that who has the
naming rights isn't terribly meaningful to most of us who like to go out and
enjoy a game," she said.
The stadium name change was announced Thursday, couched amid the high-tech buzz
generated by Network Associates' decision to streamline its operations and take
on the name of its leading product, McAfee anti-virus computer software.
The move likely will be a good one for the company, both in elevating its public
profile and in capitalizing on the multimillion-dollar naming rights deal it
inked at the coliseum in 1998, said Mike Riley, president of the Public Enterprise
Group, a Southern California marketing company that has experience in stadium-naming
rights deals.
Riley says the Network Associates deal reflects the madness of the dot-com boom
years, when hi-tech companies swimming in marketing money seized every possible
opportunity for a foothold in the public psyche.
For many companies, Network Associates included, stadium deals ensured a company's
name would be recited a few times on the evening news, but they brought little
depth to the public's awareness of their wares, Riley said.
"Network Associates Coliseum is about as exciting as kissing your sister,"
Riley said. "Nobody really knew who they were in the beginning and, over
the years, very few people have been excited enough to want to learn more."
McAfee, on the other hand, is a brand name many people know something about
-- as it has offered a helping hand to oodles of professionals struggling with
computer quirks.
And, even Medeiros admits, the new stadium name will be a bit more pleasing
to the ear.
"Network Associates Coliseum was never a particularly fluid name,"
Medeiros said. "I would say McAfee sounds better -- slightly."
The pending name change should have little impact on the coliseum, other than
changes in signage, printed materials and the windbreakers worn by stadium security
staff. Those costs will be borne by the company, said Ann Haley, executive director
of the joint powers authority that operates the coliseum.
The change should have no fiscal impact on the city and Alameda County because
the company still will be bound by the terms of the 10-year contract it signed
with the coliseum five years ago. The joint powers authority board has authority
to approve the change, but officials said that authority is limited to protecting
the stadium from having to assume an offensive or silly-sounding name.
Under the deal, which escalates in 5 percent increments annually, Network Associates
will pay about $1.4 million for the naming rights this year. The money is split
by the Oakland-Alameda County joint powers authority and the Oakland Raiders.
At the coliseum complex, the McAfee move may be the first of two significant
name changes. The Golden State Warriors basketball team currently is in negotiations
on a naming rights pact for its arena. Published reports last week asserted
Ross Stores may have the inside track.
Across the Bay, San Francisco Giants fans still are getting used to the name
SBC Park, which this season replaced Pac Bell Park as the name of the team's
waterfront ballpark.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers home field has gone in recent years from
Candlestick Park to 3Com Park to San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Point,
names that have failed each time to mask the fact that the stadium marks the
Bay Area's coldest micro-climate.
In the Bay Area, naming rights bids have grown to such a frenzy that fans like
Medeiros learned long ago to seize on a name and stick with it, despite what
the corporate big shots tell you to call the home field.
"I have never, ever heard anyone say, 'Meet you at the Net,'" she
said.