We've all gotten used to the selling of the naming rights to sports arenas and music venues. Of course, old habits die hard. As a newcomer to Pittsburgh, I was bewildered by the mythical Star Lake for a few months. However, call me old-fashioned, but I always thought that museums held a sacred place un-beholden to corporate seizure. Oh, Well. Come this fall, the SportsWorks will be re-christened the Highmark SportsWorks. Museums have always prided themselves on education, and now we'll be teaching children young that everything has a price, especially knowledge.
What's next, the Campbell's Soup Andy Warhol museum? The Home Depot Botanical Gardens? With the recent announcement of the upcoming Consol Energy hockey arena, I'm hoping for the Consol Energy Natural History museum, with a special exhibit where you can teach your children how to mine for coal, and brainwash them into believing that there is such thing as clean coal.
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Traveling exhibitions often have corporate sponsorships, this is just taking it to the next step. At least the whole science center wasn't renamed.
Down here, my favorite exhibition at the American History Smithsonian is called "America on The Move". Its largest sponsors are General Motors and AAA.
I believe that when SportsWorks first opened, it was sponsored by UPMC. It used to be UPMC Sportsworks, but then their sponsorship ended and it just became Sportsworks. I guess we're just switching from one healthcare giant to another...
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