When the Phoenix Suns and Mercury announced their downtown arena’s new name earlier this fall, it marked the seventh name in the building’s more than 30-year history.
The latest iteration — Mortgage Matchup Center — is part of a 10-year, $115 million naming rights deal with United Wholesale Mortgage. The company’s president and CEO is Mat Ishbia, who also owns the Suns and Mercury.
The arena has also been known as America West Arena, US Airways Center, Talking Stick Resort Arena, Phoenix Suns Arena, Footprint Center and PHX Arena.
Kathleen Lamp is an associate professor in the English Department at Arizona State University. She joined The Show to talk about the naming of sports stadiums and arenas and how some of those decisions are made.
Full conversation
BRODIE: Kathleen, let’s start with kind of a philosophical question — and I'll paraphrase the Bard, when it comes to an arena or similar place like that, what’s in a name?
KATHLEEN LAMP: Right? Naming is really important. Naming is how people assign meaning to place. And so when we think about sports arenas and names, it's really a site of connection, of civic pride between fans and the city and the team.
BRODIE: So when team owners or the stadium owners are looking to name these — and a lot of them now have naming rights, it's a way to make money — should they be thinking about that sort of thing when they’re deciding which business to maybe be doing business with?
LAMP: Sure. So corporate naming really took off in the 1990s. Before that, we usually saw commemorative naming and commemorative naming — there's a scholar named Josh Boyd, and he tells us that commemorative naming tended to focus on some geographical or regional feature, maybe the name of the city, maybe something like Three Rivers in Pittsburgh or the Alamo Dome, something like that.
So some kind of characteristic of the city. Commemorative naming also often was for the team itself or even for some kind of special characteristics. So like Soldier Field.
BRODIE: In Chicago.
LAMP: In Chicago. And so when we get that kind of switch over to corporate naming, there's a ton of research in sports marketing about whether fans really accept or reject a corporate name. And there's a 2020 study by Gillooly and her colleagues, and they found that there are kind of three key factors. One of those things is if a stadium or an arena has a kind of long established tradition and it's had a commemorative name in place for a long time.
So something like Fenway in Boston. Fans are really not going to accept a name change in that kind of situation, there's going to be a lot of resistance. Another big thing is this idea about regional fit. And so one of the most important factors is if fans see the corporation as local.
So if they have a good local reputation, maybe they're a good employer, maybe they have really given back to the community in some meaningful way. Those are all things fans really like and really look for in corporate sponsorship.
And then the last kind of finding in that study is that the prior relationship between the corporate sponsor and the fans really matters.
BRODIE: It's interesting because when we think about the arena in which the Suns currently play, it started off as America West Arena, which is obviously a corporate entity — it was — but was one that was based here that I'm guessing a lot of fans sort of had. It was a hometown airline. And back then, you know, a lot of people probably felt pretty good about it.
It went through a few iterations. It became Footprint Center, which is another local company. But I wonder then also — for example, the Cardinals Stadium is State Farm Stadium or where the Dbacks play is Chase Field, which are big companies that are not located here and certainly they have a presence here, but they're not hometown companies.
Does that matter in terms of how fans see the team or how fans see their experience at the stadium?
Kathleen Lamp
Arizona State University
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Handout
Kathleen Lamp
LAMP: It can, it can. So even if they're not local, if fans generally have a positive opinion of the brand, then it can still be a really positive relationship. But I think kind of another factor there is perceived benefit. So if fans know like maybe the stadium needs repair or needs updating, they can look favorably on a corporate sponsor if they're going to provide the money to do that. That's an important factor.
And in the case of the Mortgage Matchup Center, what we see is there is that relationship between the owner. And so he is the CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, which is kind of the company that Mortgage Matchup Center is the public part of. And so if fans see his ownership as a positive thing for the team and if they have good feelings towards him, then they might see this kind of corporate sponsorship as continuing that positive relationship.
BRODIE: What about fans who just won't call the stadium or the arena what it is actually called at that moment? Like fans who still call where the Diamondbacks play BOB, you know, Bank One Ballpark or University of Phoenix Stadium out in Glendale. What about fans who just won't change it?
LAMP: Yeah, I mean there's always, always resistance. I kind of think about in my own experience, a non sports example, I lived in Chicago for a while, and it's just always going to be the Sears Tower.
BRODIE: Right, yeah. It's not called that anymore, though.
LAMP: It's not called that anymore, but I will always call it that. And I think fans, they use nicknames sometimes, or maybe it's kind of the iteration of whatever the name of the arena was when they moved here or when they form their memories with the team. They might just stick with that one.
I think the big thing is, even if they don't use the name, as long as there's not overt resistance, which has happened, then it's kind of OK. The corporation still gets their media mentions, they still get that brand recognition, and it's OK even if fans don't necessarily kind of take up that naming practice.
BRODIE: So you kind of alluded to this, but in terms of some places like Mile High Field, where the Denver Broncos play, or Wembley Stadium is an example where they have sort of the name that everybody knows it by, but then it's something else, like the field named after a corporation or something like that.
Does that kind of fall into the category of teams maybe trying to have it both ways, that fans can still call it Wembley Stadium or Mile High Field or whatever, but they also make the money from getting a corporate sponsorship?
LAMP: Yeah, I think so. I think Mile High is a great example of that because they kind of tack the corporate name on to the beginning of it and then say, “at Mile High.” And so, absolutely, I think they're preserving that name for their fans and that kind of civic identity and relationship with the town, but they're also getting that kind of money that actually also kind of takes some of the tax burden off of the citizens.
BRODIE: Do you get the sense that team owners think about all of this when they're looking at who they are going to partner with for stadium naming rights? Or is it really just sort of who's going to write me the biggest check?
LAMP: I would say that the amount of research in sports marketing suggests that there is some forethought that goes into it. I think what corporations don't want is that bad publicity of being rejected. So I do think that there is at least some forethought that goes into it.
Sports teams and sports arenas provide kind of an important place for public gathering. And so when we think about places where we can go where we don't just feel like consumers, traditionally sports arenas have really played an important role in that.
BRODIE: Well, and it's interesting because teams, as you've alluded to, teams in many ways sort of are embraced civically and provide a sense of civic pride. And it sounds like what you're saying is the buildings in which they play, it kind of extends to those as well.
LAMP: Absolutely. I think those stadiums really serve as an important place of happy memories. When your team wins a championship. Or maybe it's not even — those are often multi-use arenas, so maybe you just take your kids to see their first concert there, and maybe that's a really important kind of family memory for you. And so, yeah, I think how those sites are remembered by the people who go there is really significant.
KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.
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