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Oh, SmAlbany!

Daily posts and occasional longer essays about politics, culture, and life in the Capital Region...updated M-F, midmorning


"I write this not as a booster of Albany, which I am, nor an apologist for the city, which I sometimes am, but rather as a person whose imagination has become fused with a single place, and in that place finds all the elements that a man ever needs..." -W. Kennedy, from O Albany!

Bruno's stadium blues

No love for 'the Joe': I had no idea that minor league baseball parks had begun selling off the rights to the name of their stadium, but apparently they have. Except in the capital district. Turns out that Joe Bruno Stadium in Troy is having trouble selling the rights to the stadium's name, and it's costing them a lot of potentional revenue. As reported today in the Times Union:
Several minor league stadium operators, in big and small markets, have enjoyed substantial revenues by selling naming rights to their parks. Not so the operators of Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy, who don't think they can find anybody in the private sector to help them cut their bills as their peers in baseball are doing.

For instance, KeySpan is paying an undisclosed sum -- about $200,000 annually, according to one KeySpan executive -- for having its name on the Brooklyn Cyclones' publicly owned park. The Clinton Lumberkings, in Clinton, Iowa, recently secured $450,000 over 10 years from a regional company. The Independent League Brockton Rox received $1 million four years ago from a local businessman in eastern Massachusetts. And the Greenville (S.C.) Drive, planning a new 5,000-seat stadium, is negotiating to sell rights to a corporation, officials there say.

Officials at Hudson Valley Community College, whose campus contains "The Joe," home of the Valley Cats, say the publicly funded school's consultant explored naming rights in 2001 but struck out. There was no demand, they say.

Perhaps the more surprising thing is that Bruno claims he never even wanted it named after him:
Bruno said he never asked to have his name put on the place and the naming matter is up to HVCC.
I find that hard to believe. I'm pretty sure Bruno loves having his name on that stadium. Getting your name on a building after you die is a lasting honor. Getting your name on a stadium while you're living is ego-fuelilng raw power. And it's just one more thing he can needle Shelly about. Hey Silver- want to go over to my ballpark and catch a game after our meeting with Pataki. You really should visit. We used your constituents' money to build it. Man, that must burn Silver up. God bless powerful upstate pols. Can you imagine if a downstate Republican ever wrests control of the state Senate leadership? We'll be eating cow feed.

Actually, I'm surprised that no liberal interest group has ponied up yet for the naming rights to the Joe. Can't you see it, the Suspicious Family Loan Stadiuim? Or Nepotism Field? Or how about What's Joe Smokin' Ballpark? Readers are free to suggest their own names. I always thought "G-block" would be a nice tribute to The Grove. But only if the stadium opened at 8am and had dime beers.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 14, 2005 at 11:12 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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At 8:10 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said:

re: Joe "I don't know nothin' about naming a stadium after me" Bruno. I worked at a Social Service agency in Troy that received a significant amount of money to build a resource center...name: The Joseph L. Bruno Family Resource Center....what's a majority leader to do?.......    



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