Please grant the curmudgeon a moment

Thursday, April 3, the University of Minnesota announced it would be selling the naming rights of Williams Arena to possibly the highest bidder.

The building known as Williams Arena since the early1980s, affectionately known as “the Barn,” may soon be known as the Insert-Corporate-Entity-Name here Arena. Pardon me a brief rant about things changing, evolving.

Is nothing sacred? Anything and everything is for sale. Your values, your identity, anything you hold near and dear – it all has a price. That’s the way of the world today. If you don’t like it, too bad.

If you grew up in Minnesota and paid attention to University of Minnesota sports, you knew about the Barn. When the Gophers’ hoops teams were playing well, a seat there was the toughest ticket in town. Sadly, those days are in the rearview mirror. The U of M’s athletic department wants to return to those glory days. But the trip there is really expensive and will be funded by administration selling anything and everything of value. We live in the age of collegiate sports as big business. The haves and have-nots are in part separated by the size of their respective revenue streams.

Minnesota and other major colleges, are looking for any revenue sources possible. But doing so comes at a cost. For better or worse, we live in an era where athletes can almost come and go as they please, chase the money and seek the best deal possible. This turnstile approach means fans cheer for laundry and not for their favorite athletes playing for their school. The ‘U’ needs every available dollar it can generate to bring in top-shelf athletes to raise the caliber of programs and put ticket-paying customers in seats so it can command top dollars for TV contracts.

In 2017, the U of M sold away naming rights to Mariucci Arena to 3M. It reportedly received $11.2 million for 14 years in exchange for changing the name to 3M Arena at Mariucci. With respect to John Mariucci, the godfather of ice hockey in this state, and the hockey community, we’ll still call it Mariucci Arena.

And in case you think this is a U of M-level issue, it’s not. Mankato State, St. Thomas and smaller schools are dealing with the same issues.

A local application

If the University of Minnesota can sell the naming rights to Williams Arena, is there potential for a local school district in need of revenue to maintain its facilities. At NPHS, the gym floor will need refurbishing or replacement soon.

The district could sell naming rights to say, a car dealership or a beverage company, and paint a big logo on the court. The district could take the money for the gym floor and put it toward new mechanical systems at Falcon Ridge or a new parking lot at the high school, possibly reducing the impact on taxpayers.

Let’s say the district wanted to pull the approximately 1,000 unused lockers out of the locker bay at the high school and transform the space into a flexible learning area. Imagine this: Students in a construction trades class sponsored by a home-improvement company could remove the lockers and pedestals.

The space could be converted to a learning area by selling the naming rights to say, a regional convenience store chain, complete with energy drinks and even a smoothie machine.

Ridiculous? Yep, but is it any worse than selling off your values?