On Wednesday, Monumental Sports and Entertainment announced that Washington D.C.’s Verizon Center will hereby be known as Capital One Arena, as the bank has bought naming rights to the venue.
This news sparked an extensive discussion here at The Comeback about sports stadium names, resulting in only one firm conclusion: Every freaking venue is named after a bank.
For no particular reason, here’s a list of all the venues in the four major North American sports leagues that are named after banks or other financial institutions:
NFL
- Bank of America Stadium (Carolina Panthers)
- EverBank Field (Jacksonville Jaguars)
- Lincoln Financial Field (Philadelphia Eagles)
- M&T Bank Stadium (Baltimore Ravens)
- Raymond James Stadium (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
- U.S. Bank Stadium (Minnesota Vikings)
MLB
- Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks)
- Citi Field (New York Mets)
- Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia Phillies)
- Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers)
- Guaranteed Rate Field (Chicago White Sox)
- PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates)
- SunTrust Park (Atlanta Braves)
NBA
- Barclays Center (Brooklyn Nets)
- BMO Harris Bradley Center (Milwaukee Bucks)
- Capital One Arena (Washington Wizards)
- Golden 1 Center (Sacramento Kings)
- Quicken Loans Arena (Cleveland Cavaliers)
- TD Garden (Boston Celtics)
- Well Fargo Center (Philadelphia 76ers)
NHL
- BB&T Center (Florida Panthers)
- Barclays Center (New York Islanders)
- Capital One Arena (Washington Capitals)
- KeyBank Center (Buffalo Sabres)
- PNC Arena (Carolina Hurricanes)
- Prudential Center (New Jersey Devils)
- Scotiabank Saddledome (Calgary Flames)
- Scottrade Center (St. Louis Blues)
- TD Garden (Boston Bruins)
- Wells Fargo Center (Philadelphia Flyers)
For those counting, that’s 30 of 123 teams, or almost a quarter, who play in venues named after banks.
This is not an important phenomenon. There is ultimately very little reason to care what sports venues are called. But sheesh, can’t someone else step up and buy some naming rates? Before we know it, banks and lenders and financial service providers will have their name on every building in sports. They’ve already got nearly third of the NHL!
We have no special insight into why it makes more sense for banks to sponsor venues than for car companies or tech companies (which do have their names on some buildings). Maybe they have research showing that people are especially prone to switch banks based on seeing a logo on a stadium. Or maybe they’ve just got a lot of money to throw around.
