It all started when I was eight-years-old. I’d packed my backpack full of My Little Ponies and snacks, excited to do something different for the evening. I asked my mom excitedly, “When will we be at Grandma’s house?” She looked down at me disapprovingly and said, “It’s called The Starbucks Center now. We’ll be there around six.”
I blinked silently. “What do you mean it’s called The Starbucks Center? It’s Grandma’s house. I’ve always called it Grandma’s house.”
“Well,” replied my mom, “They had to sell the naming rights. It was a financial decision. You can still call it Grandma’s house though. It’s just… technically The Starbucks Center.”
This sounds like a bad dream but it might just be the beginning of a terrible trend soon to spread throughout the US. At any moment, arenas, concert halls, baseball fields, just about any major recreational facility, could fall victim to the corporate renaming (a.k.a. sterilization) process. Of course the establishments themselves don’t necessarily look at it this way; for them it’s a smart business decision. For the loyal fans and patrons it’s an extraction of a tiny little part of their soul… the part that contains memories made at those concerts, sporting events and even big city senior proms.
As a lifetime resident of Massachusetts, I’ve watched Great Woods, one of the biggest and most well-known concert venues in the state, turn first into The Tweeter Center and then The Comcast Center. My beloved Worcester Centrum is now The DCU Center. And worst of all, The Boston Garden, home of the Boston Celtics, is now supposed to be referred to as the TD Banknorth Garden.
No! I refuse! It’s The Boston Garden! (Gahhh-den if you’re a true Bostonian.) Nobody’s going to ask their buddy if they remember “that Game 5 that went into triple overtime back in 1976 against the Suns at the TD Banknorth Garden.” It just sounds wrong; it sounds impersonal. And it seems to me that banks are taking a hold on quite a bit these days. Houses, high interest loans, overdraft fees. So why our beloved concert venues and stadiums?! 
Fenway Park is still Fenway Park—for now—and I pray that never changes. We’ll never call it anything else anyway. But it’s hard enough to watch players we’ve grown to love get moved around the League like their respective trading cards. At least everyone wearing a Red Sox jersey can still call the same place “home.”
Perhaps I’m overreacting. Perhaps I’m not. The way I look at it, these venues are an important part of local culture. They’re one of the few links that can really connect generations, because they’ve been around so long. When the venue names change, it’s like a little piece of that link is chipped away. Of course, an anti-establishment punk band playing at The Dunkin’ Donuts Center —or any big venue for that matter—has a certain air of irony about it.
The point is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In a day and age where constant change is the norm, we rely on the comfort of tradition to get by. And that’s what I think about that!
![](http://blog.ourstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/laminates.jpg "\\"We don\'t need a singer, we have laminates.\\"")
