EXTRA: “The Cell,” (2003-16)

The Chicago White Sox have spent the past 14 seasons playing their home games in a building known for short as “the Cell.” But with the name change announced Wednesday to Guaranteed Rate Field, does this now mean the Sox play at “the Rate?”

From "New Comiskey" to "the Cell" to "the Rate?" Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 Ugh!!!

THEN AGAIN, GUARANTEED Rate Field, named for the Chicago-based national mortgage lender that bought the naming rights to the stadium through the 2029 season, isn’t any more stupid than any other corporate-motivated name for a sports arena.

I question what companies really get out of paying millions of dollars to sports teams to have their brand put on the building.

Particularly in a case like with the White Sox, where the fan base is stubborn enough to resist using the new name. This could well be the inspiration for fans to deliberately go back to using the old “Sox Park” name that was on the ballpark they played in during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Although with a building of the physical scale of the current stadium, I’d argue for calling it “White Sox Stadium,” just like Yankee or Dodger, or perhaps Kansas City’s old Royals Stadium – which was the inspiration for the White Sox’ ballpark when it was built in the early 1990s.

SO FOR WHAT it’s worth, the reign of the building that began its life as “New Comiskey Park” may wind up being able to say its glory days came when it was named for a company that once used actress Joan Cusack as its face (that is, when they weren’t using a pink space alien).

For it was during its time as U.S. Cellular Field that the World Series was played in Chicago – a first in 46 years and the only one in recent years played by a Chicago team.

No matter what the Cubs accomplish this year, history will record it was the White Sox that won an ultimate championship first any time in this century.

It also was the payout from the U.S. Cellular interests that covered the cost of a renovation that enhanced much of the character the building currently has.

BU IT’S NOT like the “U.S. Cellular” name could have continued for much longer. If anything, it’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

Considering that U.S. Cellular doesn’t even exist anymore in Chicago or Illinois. The building essentially became advertising for a company that local people couldn’t use – even if they wanted to.

And considering that the company withered away locally, it didn’t likely do much business when it was here. So the days of “the Cell” are no more. Let’s just hope that someone can come up with a new moniker so that we don’t wind up calling the building “the Rate.”

 

One last task before retiring -- name park

Perhaps Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson can use his skills at brandishing nicknames (he being the guy who came up with, among others, “The Big Hurt” for Hall of Famer Frank Thomas) to come up with an appropo label for the ballpark at Shields Avenue.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: People were just as upset 14 years ago when the “U.S. Cellular” moniker was applied to the White Sox ballpark.

Aon has to go way out of town to find sports franchise worthy of corporate name

Am I the only one who thinks it odd that when Chicago-based Aon, a leading provider of insurance and risk management services, decides to get into the business of corporate sponsorship of athletics, they turn to another nation for an appropriate sports franchise?

It was this week that Aon officials announced their four-year deal with Manchester United, one of the premier sports franchises of the world (I don’t want to hear from fans of the Dallas Cowboys). It will now be the Aon logo that gets stretched across the front of the jerseys Man U players will wear – which essentially turns every football match the team plays worldwide into a billboard for Aon.

MEANWHILE, WE HERE in Chicago have our own professional football franchise (real football, not that silly game the Chicago Bears play) in the form of the Chicago Fire. Who do we Chicago soccer fans have to see on our team’s jerseys when they take the field – none other than Minnesota-based Best Buy.

An international conglomerate, versus a chain of stores that people go to in order to buy cheap appliances and other electronics.

That has to say something about the status of soccer in this country – perhaps we in the United States will know that our country’s professional league (the awkwardly-named Major League Soccer) has finally reached a significant level (instead of being a training ground for U.S. citizens who later get sold to European or Latin American teams) when Aon decides it would rather have a future sports sponsorship with its hometown team, or a home country franchise, rather than reach out to England for an advertising deal.

For the record, the deal between Manchester United and Aon took effect June 1. But officials waited until the team was in the Chicago-area as part of their summer U.S./Canada tour – during which they’re playing exhibitions against U.S. teams (they’re playing the Major League Soccer all-stars July 28 in Houston, among other matches).

IT IS A coup for Aon to be able to have their name across the front of the Manchester United jerseys. About the only comparable U.S. deal they could have negotiated would have been some sort of sponsorship deal with the New York Yankees (who themselves have had their own marketing partnerships throughout the years with Manchester United).

Still, a part of me can’t help but perceive this as a snub of sorts.

Not that it is necessary for corporations that decide to get into the “fun” of sports through sponsorships to be from the home cities of their respective teams. Heck, even team ownership doesn’t have to be, strictly speaking, a hometown deal.

Take the late George Steinbrenner, whom just about everybody thinks of as an honorary New Yorker, even though he preferred to live in Tampa, Fla., was a Cleveland native, and actually had more personal ties to a place like East Chicago, Ind., than he did to New York proper.

PERHAPS THAT IS the same thing that could happen with Aon being connected in image to Manchester United. It definitely will give Aon a more international reputation. But it could also wind up having the effect of making Manchester United a more prominent part of our own local sporting scene.

Take Thursday, which corporate types declared to be Aon United Global Day, and celebrated with events at Millenium Park. They were part of events held 120 countries meant to promote fundraising and volunteer work. Locally, theyw ere meant to promote youth programs in the Chicago Park District and Special Olympics Chicago.

Which means that these kind of corporate sponsorship deals go beyond the activity on the football pitch.

To the degree that such a connection would increase local interest in soccer, that could be a good thing. Insofar as competition for attention for the Chicago Fire, I honestly believe that a little competition for attention could be what motivates U.S. soccer franchises to improve their overall quality of play.

A BETTER MATCH on the pitch is what it will take to get people here to reduce the amount of time they spend following the professional leagues of nations such as England or Italy, or any of the Latin American leagues whose matches are readily available on Spanish-language television.

Now I know some people who are determined to think of soccer as something perpetually “too foreign” to fit into our society are going to complain about the advertising on the jersey – which hasn’t been too common in U.S. sports culture. Our sports teams traditionally have plastered advertising signage all over their stadiums so that broadcasts of the ballgames turn into virtual advertising for Coca-Cola, or whatever product is up for grabs.

We’re going to hear arguments that wearing more logos is tacky. Yet I honestly don’t think its any more annoying than some of the incredibly awkward names that sports stadiums now carry (Reliant Park in Houston, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia). It has come to the point where the once-offensive U.S. Cellular Field is one of the better sounding stadium names in existence.

If anything, the Aon logo is too simple to be tacky.

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Are Best Buys and Bimbos all a part of the future of sports?

Best Buy is a Minnesota-based company that runs big box stores selling electronics and appliances, while Grupo Bimbo is a Mexico-based food conglomerate whose namesake products are bread and other baked goods.

They may sound like radically different companies. Yet the two now have something in common, as Best Buy is hoping to follow the lead of Bimbo in boosting its public image among sports fans.

Best Buy is going to be a sponsor of a professional sports team – specifically the Chicago Fire, the Second City’s soccer team that plays in the awkwardly-named Major League Soccer.

Yes, it’s true. Best Buy’s logo, the innocuous yellow tag with the company name in black block letters, will now adorn the uniforms of the Fire, whose team colors are red and white with blue trim.

If the Fire are able to amount to anything in the world of real football (not the stupid little game the Chicago Bears played so badly this year), the sight of the Best Buy logo could become associated with Chicago, since many photographs are going to be disseminated of soccer players with the logo on the lower front part of their jerseys.

It will literally be the same as the Bimbo logo, which is the butt of many jokes from unknowing sports fans who see the word in the colorful script printed on the jerseys of many soccer teams in the Mexican Futbol League, and assume it is a sign that the players are sexually promiscuous.
Memo Ochoa of the Club America soccer team is one of just many Mexican League soccer players who promote the Bimbo brand name.

It’s really just an ad for a Mexican-made type of white bread that is similar in texture and taste to that staple of any All-American childhood, Wonder Bread. The brand’s logo also includes a cutesy blue and white bear that is about as un-sexual as one can get.

If this sounds strange to a U.S. sports mentality, one needs to keep in mind that many Latin American sports teams cover their uniforms with corporate logos galore.

A professional athlete in either the Mexican Leagues of baseball or soccer can easily shill for Bimbo bread, Mexicana Airlines and Carta Blanca beer simultaneously, making them walking billboards.

The cheesiest Mexican sports ad placement I have ever seen? It has to be for Cerveza Sol. The beer brewer likes to put its logo, which spells out in red and gold lettering the word “Sol” (Spanish for Sun) on the derriere of the short shorts that are a standard part of the uniform worn by Mexican soccer team cheerleaders.

The trend exists for athletic teams from throughout Latin America, and I also have seen such advertising on the uniforms of sports teams from Japan and other Asian nations.

The Japan national baseball team that won the World Baseball Classic tournament in 2006 wore logos for Asahi-brand soft drinks on their shoulders and Konami-brand video games on their batting helmets.

The United States seems to be the only place on Earth where athletic teams think they are holding on to something sacred by not selling uniform space for advertisers.

Until now, that is.

From the sound of it, the new Chicago Fire uniforms that are expected to be unveiled Tuesday at a Best Buy store in southwest suburban Burbank (the team itself plays in a new stadium in the neighboring town of Bridgeview) are going to be less cluttered than their Mexican counterparts.

For now, there will be one logo for Best Buy, although it will be on the lower part of the front of the jersey just under the team logo, which is meant to vaguely resemble a traditional firefighter’s shield.

If the Fire continue to play well (the team won a championship for Chicago in its first season of existence and usually puts together winning records and contending teams), Best Buy stands to get some great publicity in sports sections of newspapers and on sports-related web sites all across the United States.

Sports purists will shudder, claiming this is the decline of society as we know it.

Of course, part of the problem with our society today is that we allow the goofs who follow sports to a ridiculous extreme to think of themselves as the norm, rather than as a pack of guys in serious need of a life away from sports talk radio.

Perhaps it doesn’t bother me because I’ve gotten used to seeing the pictures of Mexican League baseball players and watching Mexican League soccer on WSNS and WGBO – the Telemundo and Univision affiliates for the Chicago television market.

The logos seem to vanish after a short time, as the activity on the playing field takes control. It will be Cuahtemoc Blanco scoring a goal, not the Best Buy mascot.

Besides, professional sports have always been willing to sell out in exchange for a few bucks.

How else to explain the mass of advertising billboards that existed on the outfield walls of old-time baseball stadiums. Many fans now claim those ads, for products ranging from Chesterfield cigarettes to Schaeffer beer, helped give the stadiums part of their character.

Current stadiums are inundated with advertising messages and jingles on virtually every part of their façade. Many even carry the name of a corporation as part of their very identity.

Sports fans in Chicago follow their professional athletic teams in buildings named for United Airlines, U.S. Cellular phone service, Wrigley-brand chewing gum and Japanese automaker Toyota. So don’t tell me about the purity of American sports. Teams are more than willing to take corporate cash whenever they can get it.

It was only a matter of time before the uniform space was sold as well.

In light of such an attitude, it would only be appropriate if Bimbo bread were to try to spread its influence in the United States (their products can be found in select grocery stores that specialize in importing Mexican brands). Perhaps they could become jersey sponsors for multiple sports teams in the United States.

American teams could go around wearing the word “Bimbo” on their jerseys. Then again, it would only be fitting if U.S. team owners wore the logo, for they are the ones who are willing to sell out – if the money’s right.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Fire’s willingness to take millions of dollars to shill for Best Buy is detailed here. http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?post_date=2008-01-14&id=27753

All teams in U.S. soccer’s professional league are expected to eventually have jersey sponsors, as detailed in this old report. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/sports/soccer/25soccer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bimbo wants to become a viable collection of food products in the United States, as explained here. http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com/

And for those of you who thought the Chicago Fire was a long-defunct team in the 1970s-era World Football League, read here. http://chicago.fire.mlsnet.com/t100/index.jsp