Keen-eyed baseball fans who kept an eye on the Los Angeles Dodgers' Opening Day score may have noticed something different about where they play. The Dodgers played their first game at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium.
The twice-reigning World Series champions sold the naming rights to their field for the first time over the offseason. The title Dodger Stadium remains intact, but the field within the stadium is now UNIQLO Field, named for a Japanese clothing brand (they really know their audience in LA).
Dodger Stadium opened in 1962 and is part of an ever-shrinking group of parks that don't bare a corporation's name. Few people, if any, will refer to the park as "UNIQLO Field," but something about the name change, something about selling the rights to part of a baseball institution, feels slimy and hollow, especially when the Dodgers are the absolute last club that needs more money.
Fenway Park is another one of those select few stadiums that hasn't sold its naming rights to a corporation — Dodger Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, Nationals Park and Camden Yards are the others. The Boston Red Sox haven't considered selling the naming rights of their field yet, but haven't ruled it out, according to reporting from Tim Healey of The Boston Globe (subscription required).
“Well, we are always looking for ways to generate more revenue. We don’t hide behind that,” Fenway Sports Group CEO and president Sam Kennedy said to Healey before Opening Day.
Red Sox haven't ruled out selling naming rights to field at Fenway Park, but they should
Red Sox fans have known that about the team for a fair few years now, given the recent history of major trades and botched free agent pursuits. But re-naming any part of Fenway Park should remain out of the question forever.
Red Sox Nation has a polarizing relationship with Fenway Park. It's undeniably a piece of history and many people love it exactly as it is, but there are downsides to watching a game in a park so cramped. No matter your thoughts, it would be wholly unnecessary and unapologetically money hungry to sell any part of Fenway Park, a sacred relic of MLB history.
Just as the Dodgers' ownership doesn't need any more money, neither does FSG or Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner. Boston's front office has already admitted just how much money Fenway Park, alone makes them by selling "The Fenway Experience" to local and visiting fans, alike — selling out to a major corporation would be a stain on that experience, one that is supposed to mimic attending a baseball game 100 years ago, before the sport was played entirely for profit.
The Dodgers selling the naming rights to their field shows that there is no limit to the greed at the top. Not only have they won two straight World Series with a roster of almost entirely top free agents they acquired by outbidding all the other contenders by a mile, they have hundreds of millions of extra dollars laying around because of their TV rights deal (subscription required). If the team was strapped for cash, the renaming would be a different story entirely, but this is money it doesn't need in the slightest.
The Red Sox should not fall in line with the Dodgers' example. Fenway Park should never go by any other name, especially if it's just for profit.