When Sports Sponsorships Go Bad
These days, corporate sports sponsorships are PR nightmares waiting to happen.
Most recent is
American International Group's
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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
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$400 million stadium-naming pact with the New York Mets and
Bank of America's
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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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