Saturday, April 26, 2008

Naming rights to TTC stations

There's talk of selling naming rights to TTC stations.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet, surprisingly because it is very important: they should only be allowed to name stations after things that are located near that station! For example, Museum Station is fine because the ROM is right there. Yorkdale Station is fine because you step out of the station into Yorkdale. They could rename Don Mills to Fairview Station because Fairview Mall is right there. But they shouldn't be allowed to rename Eg. Station to Walmart Station, because there's no Walmart there. You know how whenever they rename a theatre after its new corporate sponsor, you always have to google it to see which one it really is? The last thing we need is for that to happen to subway stations.

Speaking of naming things, why did Rogers rename the Skydome the Rogers Centre instead of the Rogers Skydome? Why take the distinctive identity out of the name? With the word Skydome there, you can look and point and go "Oh, THAT'S what it is!" With Rogers Centre, you have no way of knowing that it's even a stadium - it sounds exactly the same as the Air Canada Centre or the Eaton Centre or the Sony Centre (WTF is the Sony Centre anyway? I know it used to be called something else, but I have no idea, which just proves my point.)

4 comments:

laura k said...

Isn't Sony the Hummingbird Centre? I only know that because I work near it.

I always call the Rogers Centre Skydome. Lots of baseball fans do.

Anonymous said...

I initially thought it should have been "Rogers Skydome" as well, but the intent (successful) was to highlight and promote use of the "Rogers" name - keeping the Skydome part would have resulted in it continuing to be referred to as simply the Skydome. In any case, it should have been "Rogers Stadium" to clarify the type of facility.

Anonymous said...

..and the Sony Centre was originally the O'Keefe Centre (for 30-35 years) and then the Hummingbird Centre (for 10-12).

impudent strumpet said...

See, I've been to the O'Keefe Centre once and the Hummingbird Centre twice, and I never realized they were the same thing or the same as the Sony Centre. This is problematic!