The following story appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this morning, Friday, January 11, 2008http://www.cleveland.com/sports/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1200043885184570.xml&coll=2
Jacobs Field, the Indians' home since 1994, will now be called Progressive Field, according to a source close to the team.
The Indians reached an agreement Thursday with Progressive Insurance for the naming rights of the 40,000-seat facility on the corner of Ontario Street and Carnegie Avenue. Progressive is a Mayfield Village-based company owned by billionaire/philanthropist Peter Lewis.
An official announcement is expected today.
In 2007, the Indians hired IMG to find a buyer for the naming rights to the ballpark. It has been called Jacobs Field since the day it opened on April 4, 1994, in honor of former owners Richard and David Jacobs. Richard Jacobs paid $10 million for the naming rights, which expired in 2006. The Indians have been looking for a more lucrative arrangement since that deal ran out.
PNC Bank Corp. is paying the Pirates $2 million a year through 2020 for the right to call their ballpark PNC Park. The Reds will receive $2.5 million a year through 2033 from Great American Insurance and Citizens Bank is paying the Phillies $2.3 million a year through 2028 for its naming rights.
-- Paul Hoynes
Finally!Does this mean we can now sign C.C. Sabathia with the naming rights $$$$s? Look for that to happen very soon!
Now, on to the possibilities…
Currently, Jacob’s Field is fondly known as “The Jake.”
What will Progressive Field be know as, “The ‘Sive?”
How about “Peter Park” in honor of Progressive founder Peter Lewis?
Can they get the sign up in time for Opening Day on March 31st? It is only 80 days away! Then they can offer refund “insurance” when we get our traditional 3 feet of opening day snow. Maybe Mr. Lewis will be asked to throw out the first “snow” ball. Maybe the little AFLAC duck can do a fly-over during the National Anthem and we can all take shots at him as we clean the snow from our seats.
The Geico lizard may visit and be a guest commentator with Rick Manning and his crew. 
The Cavemen could work our concessions or be part of the ground crew. "It’s so easy, a caveman could do it" could become a mission statement. 
Perhaps future negotiations with players will include complete coverage for home and auto. Think of the possibilities for recovering on accidental injury to the players. (Aren’t we still paying off Wayne Garland’s free agency contract?)All in all, it is great to keep the name of our field of a company locally owned and operated.
Now, sign C.C. and get some sluggers!
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1 comment:
progressive field??? the least they could have done was use some alliteration and have it be called progressive park instead. now all it looks like is that they simply dropped the name "jacobs" and replaced it with "progressive". so what??? if that isn't the most unoriginal name i've ever heard. leave it to a cleveland pothead like peter lewis to screw up an opportunity to re-capture the imagination of the casual indians fan with a catchy new name to the tribe's home only to fall flat on his face. i guess what they say about pot messing with your depth perception is true because he sure didn't see all the negative fan reaction this has gotten so far. while i'm certainly not one who's going to be sentimental about not being able to call it "the jake" anymore, i still think they could have done a little better job than just "progressive field". i think cleveland fans probably would have identified with "progressive park" a little better, much like fans in san diego appreciate "petco park" as well as in detroit with "ford field", not to mention new york's shea stadium, sacramento's "arco arena" and my all-time favorite in arizona, "the bank one ballpark", or "the bob" for short. fans like to identify with names having such alliterative qualities, especially for their teams' names like the washington wizards, the tennessee titans, the chicago cubs, seattle supersonics, jacksonville jaguars as well as both the pittsburgh pirates and penguins. oh and how could i ever forget our very own cleveland cavaliers??? so why couldn't the marketing guys over at progressive understand this??? do you think maybe they don't get this whole marketing thing in the first place??? after all, geico is making an absolute killing with their brand recognition thanx to the gecko lizard campaign, not to mention the cavemen. aflac gets it too with their obnoxious duck. shoot, even safe auto at least has a catchy jingle that sticks in your brain hours after you watch their friggin' commercials. while progressive on the other hand is still pushing their ads featuring their white ford broncos, and we all know who drove the most famous white ford bronco in history, so you would think they would want to distance themselves from any sort of correlation to him, right??? speaking of which, did you hear why o.j. is back in jail again??? because what happens in vegas, stays in vegas. hee-hee!!! no but seriously though, it will be interesting to see if the dolan's will simply pocket this money to put into their own coffers, or will they re-invest it into the payroll of the team??? we can only hope.
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