Questions to be answered by the next person to post in the thread

[NYU 0]

It's possible. It's not like any team in the NFC West is overwhelmingly strong at this point.

 

Best appearance by an animal at a sporting event?

 

My pick is the bird that Randy Johnson exploded with a pitch. You'd be hard pressed to ever see that occur in a MLB game again.

 

 

 

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Didn't a bird snatch up a golf ball at the Majors and drop it in the lake? That's pretty funny.

 

I also seem to recall a someone tripping over a pigeon at Soldier Field.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Didn't a bird snatch up a golf ball at the Majors and drop it in the lake? That's pretty funny.

 

I also seem to recall a someone tripping over a pigeon at Soldier Field.

 

I'd never heard about that, but I happened upon this on YouTube earlier:

 

 

Randy Johnson is probably my answer. It's definitely my answer if the alligator in Happy Gilmore doesn't count.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

The Giants draft in 2007 was stellar. All the guys they drafted played big roles in the team's success.

[Red Baron 0]

Didn't a bird snatch up a golf ball at the Majors and drop it in the lake? That's pretty funny.

 

I also seem to recall a someone tripping over a pigeon at Soldier Field.

 

I'd never heard about that, but I happened upon this on YouTube earlier:

 

 

Randy Johnson is probably my answer. It's definitely my answer if the alligator in Happy Gilmore doesn't count.

 

I think Jeff Burton of NASCAR nailed a bird at 160 MPH and the bird shattered into pieces.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

In regards to the naming rights question, here's something that is popping up frequently. Arenas/ballparks with the same or nearly the same name. Some examples:

 

*If you want to see the Harrisburg Senators, head to Commerce Bank Park. Don't go to Commerce Bank BALLpark though, that's in Somerset, NJ.

 

*PNC Park is the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. PNC FIELD is home of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

 

*First Energy Stadium is the home of the Reading Phillies. First Energy Park is the home of the Lakewood (NJ) Blueclaws.

 

*The Wachovia Center is in Philadelphia, just across the parking lot from the Wachovia Spectrum. The Wachovia ARENA is up the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Wilkes-Barre.

 

 

[Guest Teal-y Dan]

U.S. Cellular Field = Comiskey Park

U.S. Cellular Arena = The Mecca

U.S. Cellular Coliseum = a new arena in Bloomington-Normal

U.S. Cellular Center = Five Seasons Arena in Cedar Rapids

 

TOo many.

[Slayer 0]

For a while, there were two Compaq Centers: one for the San Jose Sharks (since renamed the HP Pavilion) and the other the former home of the Houston Rockets (now a bigass church)

[MFer 0]

Also, don't forget American Airlines Arena (Heat) and American Airlines Center (Mavericks).

 

EDIT: And the AT&T Center (Spurs) and AT&T Park (S.F. Giants), both formerly named after SBC.

[Guest Teal-y Dan]

Man, fuck "AT&T Park." Just call it Willie Mays Field or something. AT&T doesn't need to get their name in the papers. This is a company so established that their stock exchange symbol is just the letter T. It must cost a lot to keep replacing the signage.

[CanadianChris 0]

Doc Rivers got me thinking about this question:

 

Who is/was the worst coach of a championship team, or a team that's otherwise really, really good?

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I'm gonna say Paul Maurice - one playoff appearance in '01, and a Finals appearance in '02? That certainly can't be his doing; I can probably come up with a better answer if I really thought about it, but I wanna ask a follow-up question immediately.

Man, fuck "AT&T Park." Just call it Willie Mays Field or something. AT&T doesn't need to get their name in the papers. This is a company so established that their stock exchange symbol is just the letter T. It must cost a lot to keep replacing the signage.

 

I suppose this is why I'm not a market research expert, but what's the appeal to having four or five parks with your name on it? Has anyone ever gone to a ballpark and said "Hey. I need a new cell phone? BUT WITH WHOM???????????????????????? Wait, At&T Park. Settled!"

 

I could see, say, Bob's Insurance Field in a suburban town, but has anyone in America not heard of At&T?

 

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

It's just getting the name out there and reinforcing it, which is what most advertising is anyway. Everyone who goes to a game or watches it on TV or reads the game recaps hears the name, sees the banners, etc. No one's going to consciously say or believe "I got my phone because of going to games at AT&T Park," but plenty of people will actually do just that.

[Guest I swallowed a Q-Tip.]

You're right about how it works, getting the name out, which made sense with Pacific Bell or SBC, to varying extents, but AT&T is one of the biggest and most ubiquitous American corporations in history. I guess you could extrapolate that to "then why advertise in any medium?", but I'm sure that television and print advertisements have a higher degree of efficacy than slapping your name on a baseball park in San Francisco, the identity of which has been so diluted by name changes over the last nine years that nobody identifies it as such unless contractually obligated. Curiously, efforts to get the name out by way of Candlestick Park have not only proven to be money pits, but the sponsored names don't even last. No tolerance for naming rights in The Gayest Place on Earth.

[treble 0]

I'm guessing it's just cheaper to keep paying to have their name on the buildings than it would be to get out of the contracts that they absorbed when they bought SBC (or whatever happened there).