Citigroup takes U.S. money, pays money to Mets
I thought about writing a column for Tuesday about Citigroup's $20 million per year naming rights deal with the Mets, which still is in place despite 52,000 pending layoffs and now a government bailout.
I changed my mind and decided to write about the Jets and Giants instead.
No worries.
Rieber took care of the topic for me.
I'm done for today. I swear. Enjoy Caps-Wild on Versus at 8 p.m.
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Comments (4)
What the heck? Let's spread the money around! As NJ residents we're already footing the bill for the Rutgers Stadium expansion and infrastructure improvements to the new Giants Stadium and Xanadu. If Jerry Jones needs federal funds to finish the new Texas Stadium, then I'll get mad.
Pity the place isn't BIG enough to invite all 52,000 fired employees to a reunion.
Maybe they'll leave the ruins of Shea long enough for a fun weekend picnic, where the ex-Citipeople can hear the cheers of the still-employed crowd in the bowl over to the side.
This is just poor. You should know full well that the contract for naming rights was signed years ago. It's hardly as simple as you make it out to be.
Yes, Citi could theoretically initiate a long and expensive contractual battle to try to get out of the deal. It's hardly as simple as them taking government money to specifically pay the Mets.
You can do better than this.
"You should know full well that the contract for naming rights was signed years ago"
Sure it was Gradeck. And just assuredly in long term contracts like this, know that there are more outs built into them by each side than can be found in a 27 inning baseball game.
Keep in mind what the PR spokesman said to Rieber today..."We don't want to impact our longterm marketing plans".
What a crock of suited puppet nonsense.
Do anyone with nothing more than a 2 year JC diploma consider paying nearly a half billion dollars for the right to have your name hung over a Stadium "marketing"??
It's not even decent advertising. The ROI is marginal at best, negative in reality. It's a glamor play, nothing more. And the days of glamor plays are and should be history right now.
Time to pull up the socks.
How many people do you think are gonna switch their checking accounts to Citibank because they just happened to see the sign while driving by it on the GCP?
Citigroup owes it to their shareholders, their stakeholders (employees), their customers and now the taxpayers to get out of this contract ASAP.
And if the Mets decide to stand in their way and start a legal war, then it is incumbent upon all of those involved on the other side to make this a horrific Public Relations incident for this sports franchise who just had a new home paid for them by the taxpayers.
And when the dust settles on that, let's hang the guy that approved this tax bailout to begin with.
Laissez-faire....from two time zones away.