Audio cable biz pays $6M for Candlestick rights (ESPN)
San Francisco renamed its most storied sports stadium “Monster Park” on Tuesday, with a Bay Area electronics cable company agreeing to pay at least $6 million for the naming rights to Candlestick Park. “It’s a only-in-San Francisco-name and San Francisco prides itself on being different and this is just another example of us standing out in a crowd,” said Sam Singer, spokesman for the San Francisco 49ers, who play at the stadium.
The name, which becomes effective in time for Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Rams, comes from the stadium’s new sponsor, Monster Cable Products, a San Francisco-area company that sells audio cables such as those connecting guitars to amplifiers. “Monster has always been an unusual name. But, at least within the consumer electronics industry, it’s a famous name,” Monster vice president David Tognotti said in an interview.
Monster Cable beat out other suitors for the naming rights, including Oracle Corp, Wells Fargo and Macromedia.
I’ve used Monster cable since the late 1980s. But who knew they were big enough to afford to pay $6 mil for stadium naming rights? And, given the history of companies that name stadia after themselves, I’m thinking I might ought to stock up on speaker wire before they go out of business. . . .
