Using names of corporate sponsors in stories

First reference should be the actual name of the event. After that, use what the name the public is most familiar with.

An exception is the "presented by" crap. Fuck all of that with a thorny stick.

 

I'd call it the Houston Open.

Shell can suck it.

 

The number one thing is to be clear to the readers; use what is necessary to reach that aim.

 

I usually avoid using the names of sponsors, but there are times I felt bad about not including them. A major condo development in my town shelled out to bring in some BIG time speakers (at least as far as people in my town are concerned.) It was a packed house and people ate that shit up. Everyone loved it, and the development folks didn't profit at all from the thing in terms of ticket sales or anything like that. Even at the event they put only very minimal effort into getting their name out there and they donated all the ticket sales and stuff. I didn't include them at all, and felt bad about it. Not that I should have given them a huge plug, but in retrospect, I could have slipped their name in once without breaking up the story.

 

Oddly, I aqree with most of the discretionary points here, but I've been thinking more and more how unfair that is -- or inconsistent is perhaps the better word.

So, because the Buick Open just happens to be the name everybody knows now, and there's really not anything else you can call it that people will be familiar with, they get the sponsorship mention.

But in the example given Citibank actually goes out of their way not to tromp on the traditional Rose Bowl name -- and we think, "Screw them."

Coca-Cola 500? Pretty much has to be.

Another point: I think a lot of people would still refer to the Chick-Fil-A Bowl as the Peach Bowl. But of course, we can't call it that.

By the way, one point of clarification. I believe AP, in the Rose Bowl case above, will often end the story, or place somewhere, "The game is sponsored by Citibank."

Point being: The way we do it isn't necessarily consistent, nor fair to the corporations who are attachments to an event name that we can refer to as something else. And I know, a lot of people don't care about that at all.

Bottom line: Basically, a big mess. Take your best shot.

 

The best example I can think of on this topic is the bowl game in El Paso, Texas, which went from the Sun Bowl to the John Hancock Sun Bowl to the John Hancock Bowl and back to the Sun Bowl. I think that's the order.
At any rate, John Hancock couldn't be certain of media mentions until it ponied up the cash to blot out the Sun, so to speak.

 

Wouldn't the fact that a company brought big name speakers to an events and donated the proceeds to charity be a story?

I don't feel bad about corporations who don't get enough ink. Ink costs money and they should pony up the dough for an ad if they're that concerned about getting their name out to the public.

 

In the early 1980s I worked someplace where we'd edit stories to say, "Tom Watson won a $300,000 golf tournament Sunday in Podunk, Texas," rather than say he won the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Pro-Am. We never used a sponsor's name, so often there was no name used for the event in our paper. It was a little ridiculous, bordering on spite.

 

AP's been doing that in NASCAR stories for a year or two now, haven't they?

 

I find it amusing we use Buick Open but get our nuts in a wad if the "Viagra Bowl presented by Buick" is our option.

Both instances are the name of the event. "Presented by" sucks and I have eliminated that before, too. But honestly, it is the actual name of the event.

If an event in your town was sponsored by your newspaper and called "Summer Art Series presented by The Podunk Press" it wouldn't get cut.

 

Presented by is not the name of the event. If you talked whomever organized the event, would they use presented by in a spoken conversation, such as "I really hope you come out to the Fireant Classic presented by Citibank? I would think not.

 

We had this thread a few months ago.. my argument remains the same:
If it is the John Hancock Sun Bowl, that is the way it needs to be referrred in first reference after that Sun Bowl is fine.
The whole name should be in the initial reference, excluding the "presented by" crap.
Part of your job (you know the how, what where - in this case the what) is identifying the event, by its proper name.