BC Place: Stadium Refurbishment | Completed

[cornholio]

Here is what I think is even more moronic.

The province spending millions every year to promote the province, increase the brand value of their name, and instill citizen pride in where they live, and then going and look at selling the naming rights to their own ****** stadium???? Do people not know why public buildings have the names they have???? The value in this? People go this route and then wonder why they end up living in a dump where no one gives a dam about the place they live, no pride, no loyalty.

Selling the naming rights of ANY public building or place is what I call moronic.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Steveston

Gimme "BC Place" over "Telus Park" anyday of the week.

Sounds like a snowboarding run...

[red-paladin]

I can see now..

"Do you know how I get to Telus Gardens?"
"It's up three blocks"
"Thanks!"
"No prob, I just came back from there, I bought an iPod"
"You can buy iPods at a football stadium?"
"No that's Telus Park"
"I've already been to the Omnimax, where's the football stadium?"
"..."

[flight_from_kamakura]

yeah, i still can't believe that the company would be so brand-focused that they call their condo project 'telus gardens', it's actually sort of offensive.

[officedweller]

Various articles:

http://www.vancouversun.com/Nixing+Place+deal+looks+like+blunder/6276069/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Telus...+failed+renaming+deal/6273586/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Greas...ace+roof+cost+million/6273751/story.html

One article - which I can't find on-line - indicated that Telus had reserved 30% of the time on the interior digital boards - so not exclsuuve use of the interior signs.

[TwoFace]

I wouldn't put this one to bed just yet, especially now that they have to re-negotiate the existing rewiring work that was already done.

The key wording from that Vancouver Sun article could be ...

"The government cancelled the naming deal last week after it said the $40 million price tag to change the stadium's name to "Telus Park" was not rich enough and that the public wouldn't want to lose the building's iconic name.

[dtrain]

Originally Posted by Steveston

Frankly, I'm rather sick of the whole corporate naming of arenas and stadia. Call me old fashioned, but I long for the days when you could actually tell where the stadium was located by it's name. I knew that "Three Rivers Stadium" was in Pittsburgh, "Taylor Field" was in Regina, "The Forum" was in Montreal, and "The Orange Bowl" was in Miami. Where the heck is the "Edward Jones Dome", "M & T Bank Stadium", "The Prudential Center", or "Scotiabank Place"?

Gimme "BC Place" over "Telus Park" anyday of the week.

Agreed - BC Place Stadium is not a PARK in any shape or form, it's a STADIUM.
I take my kids to play in the park, parks have trees, play area, etc.

[Vancity]

Bell should jump in, and rename bc place as Bell Stadium.

One more reason why the 'Caps need their own stadium. WHEN will that day come?

[catkat]

Not a lot of companies in Canada willing to or able to put their name on a sporting arena. Does it point to Canada's lack of private sector economic muscle? In any event, I'm getting sick of seeing Bell, Rogers, Telus, ______ insert Canadian Bank, on everything

[TwoFace]

Originally Posted by Vancity

One more reason why the 'Caps need their own stadium. WHEN will that day come?

Never.
They used to have their own house at Swangard, home to them and their 2-3 thousand fans.
I doubt that a venue is going to improve attendance if the product stays the same.

**edit.
Apparently the 1st season in the dome is looking better than I though, although not quit enough for an owner to be spending hundreds of millions on a private venue.
From SB Nation ...

"Barber indicated that the Whitecaps are about 1,000 season tickets below their cap and that 3,000 tickets remain for the first game in our Major League Soccer history against the Toronto FCs on March 19. Those are both large numbers, but take them in context. The Whitecaps' season ticket cap is 16,500, and a bit of Grade One subtraction tells us that means the Whitecaps have sold approximately 15,500 season tickets."

[Waders]

Originally Posted by Vancity

Bell should jump in, and rename bc place as Bell Stadium.

One more reason why the 'Caps need their own stadium. WHEN will that day come?

Well. Bell actually wants to called the stadium "Bell Pitch" . Unfortunately they don't want to pay PavCo $40 million dollars.
This "Naming rights" story is getting quite interesting with Bell somehow got involved.

Source: Whitecaps, Bell red-carded by B.C. Pavilion Corp

[crazyjoeda]

Originally Posted by cornholio

The province spending millions every year to promote the province, increase the brand value of their name, and instill citizen pride in where they live, and then going and look at selling the naming rights to their own ****** stadium????

That's an interesting perspective, perhaps BC Place should be re-named BC Place with BC referring to the province/Tourism BC. If the province is holding the naming rights it should leverage that for its own promotional purposes like any corporate entity would.

[dreambrother808]

Heck, it's just not enough to actually look at the mountains, the ocean, our beautiful city, or pretty much anywhere else BC in order to instill some sense of wonder or pride.
Tourists or locals might even forget what province they're in.
Thankfully, we have the name of this stadium to rectify all that.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Heck, it's just not enough to actually look at the mountains, the ocean, our beautiful city, or pretty much anywhere else BC in order to instill some sense of wonder or pride.
Tourists or locals might even forget what province they're in.
Thankfully, we have the name of this stadium to rectify all that.

The reason Telus is willing to spend 40million is because it is worth it in a marketing sense. The province needs to and does actively also market its self, and spends lots of money on that. Using something especially like BC Place, something that is already supposed to represent the province, to market the provinces name has already more value to the province then using that same stadium to market the Telus brand. If the value is 40million to Telus its probably 60million+ to the province.

With your logic why should Telus spend 40million on the naming rights, everyone knows Telus, they have piles of advertisement campaigns already that hit every single person in this province, why spend that money on the stadiums naming rights? Infact why doesnt Telus them selves sell their own naming rights? They can call their downtown development Bell center, or Honda park for a fee.

Selling naming rights is short sighted imo and doesnt take the bigger picture in to account, at the end of the day the province ends up being on the losing end in the long term. I am confident that the 40million in revenue is easily exceeded in significantly higher indirect costs to the province.

I do however think that the province should be more proactive in using its facilities and resources at its disposal to more efficiently market its self.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by crazyjoeda

That's an interesting perspective, perhaps BC Place should be re-named BC Place with BC referring to the province/Tourism BC. If the province is holding the naming rights it should leverage that for its own promotional purposes like any corporate entity would.

Thank you so much! You understand where I am coming from.

[hankthetank]

Thank goodness the deal fell through. This looks awful!

[officedweller]

Here's the link to the story where that pic comes from.

Huge difference in sign size. The Telus proposal spans almost 4 masts while the Pavco sign spans only 2 masts.

I can imagine a problem with the Telus sign shining right into a new tower on the Plaza of Nations site.

I wonder if recent sign issues with the City played into the dispute?? I'll bet it did.

Oversized Telus sign blamed as BC Place deal breaker
Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Pat Bel sheds more light on the failed renaming of BC Place
By Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun
March 13, 2012

VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberal government says it cancelled a deal to rename BC Place in large part because Telus was planning to place two signs on the outside of the stadium that were almost 2.7 metres (nine feet) larger than agreed.

...

“It got to the point where it felt like we were trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. The deal was changing so much,” added Bell, who said he and Finance Minister Kevin Falcon, not cabinet, made the final decision.

...

Bell said the government originally told companies it was looking to sell rights that included the ability to place two illuminated signs on the outside of BC Place that would fit within a ring that encircles the base of the roof. Such signs would have been about 3.3 to 3.9 metres (11 to 13 feet) high.

The now constructed “Telus Park” sign was 4.5 metres (15 feet) for much of the writing, a Telus spokesman said, though he agreed some letters stretched to almost 6.7 metres (22 feet).

During negotiations, Telus told the government that if it had to reduce the size of its planned sign, it would also significantly reduce the $1.75 million per year it was prepared to pay for naming rights.

The Telus spokesman, who did not want to be named due to sensitivity of negotiations, confirmed that was Telus’s position in its written terms, but added the company later took that off the table.

...

For government, the concern was not just having a much larger sign on BC Place, but also the fact that Telus would be getting a much better deal than had been offered to other companies in the initial call for proposals.

...

And PAVCO's proposal to Telus:







[

http://www.vancouversun.com/Oversized+Telus+sign+blamed+Place+deal+breaker/6291676/story.html

[Prometheus]

Although the style of the proposed sign is not as cool or tasteful as I had envisioned (for example, I had envisioned a series of simple, crisp, clean looking backlight signs covering the exposed concrete bulkheads around the stadium), it is hardly a reason to forfeit $40 million dollars of revenue.

[Prometheus]

officedweller, why did you edit the following relevant passage from the Sun article?:

During negotiations, Telus told the government that if it had to reduce the size of its planned sign, it would also significantly reduce the $1.75 million per year it was prepared to pay for naming rights.

The Telus spokesman, who did not want to be named due to sensitivity of negotiations, confirmed that was Telus’s position in its written terms, but added the company later took that off the table.

“In the later stages of negotiations we agreed that if the signs needed to be reduced in size, or were required to be reduced in size, that we would not reduce our funding and that we would hold the accountability on that front,” said the spokesman.

“Towards the later stages we said, look, we’re willing to drop that.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/Oversized+Telus+sign+blamed+Place+deal+breaker/6291676/story.html

So, Telus was willing to change the signs and pay the full $40 million. Yet the government still cancelled the deal.

[dtrain]

I don't mind Pavco's "Telus Place" logo & sign design, it's tasteful and a bit more understated, although the font would have had to match Telus's corporate wordmark for them to accept it. Too bad they couldn't have agreed on that. The dogwood in 'Telus Park' sign would have been absolutely huge!