Portland's last major bastion of "We call it what we want," the Rose Garden, is now the Moda Center; a friend of mine who works at Fox Sports Radio (AM 620) here in town has admitted that they use the name on air only because they have to. Though at least Moda Health has offices here. (By the way, Moda Health is formerly ODS, which I pronounced "Odious" partly because a friend worked for a deeply difficult boss there...and partly because "ODS"/"odious" sounds so right.) I kind of want to think it's a slight revolt that the arena's attempt to get people to chat "Mic-Key-Dees" when the Trail Blazers score 100 points and win everyone in the area free McDonald's Egg McMuffins has been greeted by people instead chanting "Cha-Lu-Pa!," which they used to chant when they'd get coupons for free Taco Bell chalupas instead, but replacing one fast food-ish corporate behemoth with another fast food-ish corporate behemoth isn't exactly, you know, punk.
One of the NFL's last named-for-someone places, Lambeau Field, is still named for Curly Lambeau. There is a plan to potentially sell the naming rights (and now I wonder how much corporate naming rights often sell for), though the Green Bay Packers do want and hope to keep it Lambeau Field. If the "a company pays to name a stadium after someone" thing happens, it'll most likely happen here.
However, I've also said this: I kind of like that the St. Louis Rams enclosed stadium is known as Edward Jones Dome, because there's a chance of something I like: that people shorten that to "The Jones Dome." AND I JUST LIKE THE SOUND OF "THE JONES DOME." Sounds slang-y.
And now I'm slightly sad that the "corporate naming rights" era didn't start early enough for a stadium to be named for the food-making behemoth with the ads that said "We're Beatrice..."
