$400 Million Investment

One of the things I hate most about sports stadiums is when companies buy the naming rights of the stadiums. Arizona has been particularly annoying with University of Phoenix Stadium for a professional football team, Jobing.com Arena, AWA becoming US Airways Centre, and BOB becoming Chase Field. It seems like such a sell-out. In New York the new baseball stadium for the Mets is going to be Citi Field (picture above). Citigroup is going to spend $400 million over twenty years for the naming rights. Not only is that an absurd amount of money for their name on a stadium but it also comes in light of Citigroup receiving financial backing from the US Government while cutting thousands of jobs of regular workers. I saw a brief blurb on this while looking through ESPN's articles online. I have to say I agree with Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Ted Poe, whom the article quotes. "At Citigroup, 50,000 people will lose their jobs. Yet in the boardroom of Citigroup, spending $400 million to put a name on stadium seems like a good idea," said Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat. "The Treasury Department, which forced Citigroup corporate executives to give up their private jet, should also demand that Citigroup cancel its $400 million advertisement at the Mets field and instead begin to repay their debt to the taxpayers." If the US Government is going to bail out these big corporations, then I believe they need to be held to strict accountability on their spending. Does any fan really enjoy their team's stadium being named something stupid anyway? Do us all a favor - stop naming our stadiums pointless names that are doomed to be changed anyhow & invest your money in more worthy things like jobs for workers and less goverment bailout money.