Reuters Soccer Blog

‘A Rose Bowl by any other name would smell as sweet’

The Miami Dolphins used to play at Dolphin Stadium. It was not, it has to be said, a particularly imaginative moniker for the venue but nonetheless it carried a certain logic. But the days of Dolphin Stadium are over: when the Fins kick off the new NFL season in August, they will be performing at Land Shark Stadium.

Land Shark is a not particularly well-known beer marketed by Jimmy Buffett, a singer-songwriter and Dolphins fan who is the owner of the Margaritaville chain of bars and restaurants.

While the idea of the Dolphins playing among sharks has caused some mirth among Miami fans, they should perhaps be relieved that Buffett didn’t choose to name the venue after one of his restaurant chains, (also one of his songs) “Cheeseburger in Paradise“.

Mind you, if you think ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise Park’ would be a, erm, rather cheesy name for a sports venue, then spare a thought for the fans of the Cleveland City Stars soccer team, whose USL side actually play at the Middlefield Cheese Stadium.

Or what about FC Dallas of Major League Soccer who play at Pizza Hut Park? Or Dick’s Sporting Goods Park – home to the Colorado Rapids. The list goes on. Current Super Bowl champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers play at Heinz Field but there are many more than 57 varieties of sponsored stadium names in U.S sport.

There is, refreshingly but incongruously, no jersey sponsorship in the NFL, the NBA or Major League Baseball, but when it comes to venue-naming, there is no such purity.

One of the few exceptions at the moment is the new home to the Dallas Cowboys, which will debut next season and which at the moment has the gloriously unimaginative name Dallas Cowboys New Stadium. I bet that doesn’t last long.