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When Sports Sponsorships Go Bad
By Jeanine Poggi
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
07/09/09 11:57 AM EDT
These days, corporate sports sponsorships are PR nightmares waiting to happen.
Most recent is American International Group's
(AIG:NYSE)
sponsorship of England's Manchester United football team. The four-year deal, valued at about $100 million, will not be renewed by the failing insurer when it expires next year.
Indeed, from golfers donning the names of discredited financial firms, to retroactively embarrassing stadium-naming deals -- see: Enron's $100 million, 30-year deal with the Houston Astros, Citigroup's
(C:NYSE)
$400 million stadium-naming pact with the New York Mets and Bank of America's
(BAC:NYSE)
20-year naming-rights deal with the Carolina Panthers -- regret is just a bailout or a bankruptcy away.
In honor of these, TheStreet has compiled a sports-branding Hall of Shame of sorts. So pull on your Stanford Financial hat, and settle in for a gallery of the decade's most unfortunate naming deals.
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