Tuesday’s news of the change of corporate sponsorship for the Los Angeles Lakers/Clippers/Kings/Sparks arena from “Staples Center” to “Crypto.com Arena” (effective beginning December 25) drew plenty of jokes, and it also drew a “It’s the same location, but it’s kind of like stripping the history here by calling it something else…It’ll be weird for sure” from the Clippers’ Paul George. Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke went even more over the top than George in a Twitter thread Wednesday:
Staples wasn't some historical figure or pioneer, it is just an office-supply store, but it was a good solid arena name and it stuck. It was Kobe's Staples. It was Shaq's Staples. It was Lob City's Staples. It was Candace's Staples. It was two Stanley Cup trophies Staples.
— Bill Plaschke (@BillPlaschke) November 17, 2021
The building is still there, I get it, but it's identity is gone, and so are the settings for so many memories. There is a reason Los Angeles embraces the unchanging names of Dodger Stadium, the Rose Bowl, and the Coliseum. They tell us who we are. They show us where we've been
— Bill Plaschke (@BillPlaschke) November 17, 2021
That is definitely an interesting reaction to an arena changing from one corporate sponsor to another. How in the world are the “settings for so many memories” impacted by the building carrying a different corporate sponsor? Also, people don’t have to refer to buildings by their corporate sponsorship name; no one’s stopping Plaschke from calling it “Staples” for all eternity in conversation, and he could probably do so in print too, although Crypto.com might offer some pushback to that. But no, the building’s “identity” and the memories there are all “gone” now that it carries a different sponsor.
And it’s notable that all the “unchanging names” Plaschke references at the end are that way because…those venues haven’t sold their naming rights to a corporate sponsor. Plaschke’s argument here would make much more sense if he was talking about a name change for one of those venues, or for anything that didn’t currently have a corporate sponsor and was adding one. Instead, we just get the impression that he really cares about the chain of office supply stores that had their name on this building. Won’t someone please think of the Easy Buttons?
[Bill Plaschke on Twitter; Plaschke photo from The Los Angeles Times]
