Oct
15

Walnut Creek Amphitheatre Loses Its Name, Again

walnutcreek It appears the naming rights period for Time Warner Cable has expired at Walnut Creek. The amphitheater, originally called “Walnut Creek Amphitheatre” has carried 3 different naming rights deals in its history; Hardees, Alltel, and Time Warner Cable.

The first show for the upcoming 2014 season was announced yesterday, and it features “Lady Antebellum at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre”, so it looks like until another naming rights deal is secured, the facility will fall back on its original, rightful name.

When corporate naming rights deals first came along, the names stuck with consumers. However after throwing away so many names, it begs two questions: do fluctuating names damage the brand of the facility, and do naming rights deals sway consumer decision making at all? I can certainly say that I am mostly immune to these kinds of efforts (though I whole-heartedly thank RBC/PNC for ponying up half of the money for Raleigh to finally get an arena 😉 )

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  • anon Said:

    I hate the corporate naming of facilities (ballparks, music venues, sporting events). It just confuses things when they stop paying to have their name on there and some other company steps in to rename it. The corporate name has no historic connection to the facility and is meaningless. If the company did not pay to build the facility (see the former Sears Tower) they should not have their name as the primary name of the facility. I would be fine with a corporate “sponsored by” subname for a facility. Walnut Creek sponsored by Faceless MegaCorp.

  • ct Said:

    The world runs on money. If the naming rights aren’t sold, the money has to come from somewhere — charges to promoters (that are passed along as ticket prices), subsidies from taxpayers, etc.

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