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To: lds23
The whole idea of taxpayer funded stadiums getting corporate names - whatever happened to naming things after great people?

In Houston, the stadium would have likely been named after team owner Drayton McClain or mayors Lee. P. Brown or Bob Lanier. None of them are great people or even anyone that you'd want as a neighbor.

During Houston's last big public expeditures, we got (mayor) Hoffienz's name on buildings in the Astrodome (and he even got an apartment residence inside the dome!), Jesse Jones got Jones' Hall, and it goes on.

This is empire building.

The name may go to Jim Mackenvale (a man with annoying commercials and a funiture store that resembles Disneyland crossed with Hard Rock Cafe). Jim built up his furniture store and is a mover-and-shaker in town partly due to his constant promotion of himself and Houston. He's one of the people driving for the summer Olympics to come to Houston. His store is Gallery Furniture and that may be put on the ballpark. At least he would have the decency to buy his name with cash in plain site rather than the backroom deals that pocket public $$$ in the old mover-and-shakers' world.

BTW, Enron got naming rights on the new stadium for $100million for 30 years. The stadium itself cost $300million(+) to build.

Reliant Energy bought the naming rights to the Astrodomain (The Astrodome, the Astrohall, the Astroarena, plus the new football field) for $300million for 30 years.

In other words, they could have bought a stadium for the price of the naming rights. And Reliant had a rate hike after purchasing the naming rights and had the gall to say that the customers would not see the bill for the cost of the naming rights. Riiiiiiiiiiight....

31 posted on 02/05/2002 2:32:26 PM PST by weegee
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To: weegee
Just for the record, for some unknown reason, it is still called Astroworld and not Reliantworld...
34 posted on 02/05/2002 2:34:07 PM PST by weegee
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To: weegee

Lest anyone be confused, the money mentioned above does not go to any government or pseudo governmental agencies. It goes to the team owners. Another part of the major scam.

42 posted on 02/05/2002 3:16:27 PM PST by FreePaul
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