What is in a name?

Interesting thought today. The rumor is that Target paid somewhere in the ballpark (hee hee) of $100 million for the naming rights to the new Twins stadium for 25 years. Questions abound as to if it is worth it. What do they get for approximately $4 million per yer? Name recognition, invaluable to retailers, especially during difficult financial times. But how do you put $4 million into perspective? How do we determine if it is worth it? To me, that is a huge amount of money. Heck, nowadays, $4 is a lot of money to my budget.



I read today that Target donates $3 million per week to local charities. $3 million per week! So I would guess that $4 million a year, given the potential name recognition increase makes it piddly in the scope of their advertising bucket. Given 81 home games, there name will get exposure at least 81 times. $50K per televised event suddenly doesn't sound so bad. Plus the fact that they get rights for a strong presence inside the stadium. Sounds bargain basement to me. Heck, a 30 second Superbowl commercial is rumored to cost $3 million.

One thing I am very pleased about is that they went with a local business that is likely to be around for a long time. When researching fields it was interesting to see how many have changed names (talk about confusing) and how many have changed multiple times. Minnesotans are not good with change, so let's hope the name lasts as long as the rights do!

One thing non-baseball friends are confused about is that this agreement in no way affects the ownership of the team, or the field. All this does is buy the name, advertising and a presence in the ballpark.

Go Twins!!!