Naming Rights For Gasparilla

It’s now official. Starting late next month – and running through 2012 – the Gasparilla Pirate Fest will have a new title sponsor: Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Hard Rock replaces Southwest Airlines.

Two points.

Signature parades are expensive undertakings and a title sponsor is a necessity. Hard Rock stepped up from “presenting sponsor” status when Southwest’s strategy called for it to reallocate funds to newer markets. It’s good for the parade, which could have been in a financial bind sans a title sponsor. And it’s good for the sponsor. High-profile events in front of local media and 400,000-plus spectators can reinforce any brand name.

Alas, given all the controversy about a parade of this magnitude that necessarily invades South Tampa neighborhoods with too much alcohol and too many out-of-control imbibers, it’s too bad a title sponsor with a, well, somewhat different connotation didn’t step up.

But Whole Foods, Patagonia and Newman’s Own reportedly weren’t interested.

UT And Safety

The University of Tampa has been traumatized lately with tragic deaths and serious injuries to its students. Rob Ruday, the dean of students at UT, said last week that he and his staff were grappling with an appropriate message about safety to send out to students.

Here’s a serious suggestion. Students, of course, frequently act like mortality is an abstraction and won’t always do the prudent thing. But put it this way: “Nothing good happens – whether you’re walking or driving – during early morning, wee hours. Nothing.”

Forever Embers

Call it another later-in-life rite of passage. This one even more visceral than a class reunion. Unsolicited mail where the envelope is brightly emblazoned with an enticing mortality reminder: “FREE Pre-Paid Cremation! Details Inside.”

Sure enough, the Neptune Society wants to memorialize me. Despite that feature I did 25 years ago for the Tampa Bay Business Journal. The one where I referenced the elderly, white-thatched, goateed, nautically-garbed founder as “Colonel Cinders.”

But will this direct-mail pitch spark any interest? Remains to be seen.

Iconic?

Last week’s Friday Extra highlighted this past weekend’s entertainment/arts options, from Roger Daltrey of The Who to The Florida Orchestra teaming up with members of “Beatlemania” to the Tarpon Springs Thanksgiving Weekend Crafts Fest. Also prominently hyped: singer/songwriter/rapper/connoisseur of underage girls R. Kelly, referred to as a “Chicago icon.”

You know you’re an alien in your own culture when the R. Kellys are referenced as “icons.” 

Quoteworthy

  • “It was kind of Darwinian: If you’re meant to survive, you will.” –Tom Miller, associate professor, USF, College of Education, on USF’s low (six-year) graduation rate (48 percent) and the university’s track record of not providing extra support to students in need.
  • “That girl is beyond a beast. Let’s say beast mode – beyond beast mode. I’ll admit it. It was fun watching her play.” Miami Ferguson High volleyball coach Greg Shanower on Plant High’s 6-foot-2 outside hitter Maddie Martin.
  • “I don’t enjoy going to receptions a lot, but I know I have to do it.” –Gov. Charlie Crist on the perception that he might be spending an inordinate amount of time out of state raising money for his Senate campaign.
  • “Most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community.” –Farhad Afshar, who runs the Coordination of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland, on a recent Swiss referendum that imposed a national ban on minarets.
  • “People are going to ask why, eight years after 2001, Osama bin Laden has never been near to being caught. Al-Quaida has a base in Pakistan. That base is still there – they are able to recruit from abroad. The Pakistan authorities must convince us that they are taking all the action that is necessary to deal with that threat.” –British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Rays Need To Think Regionally

We call ourselves the Tampa Bay market for more than geographical reasons. It’s because contiguous counties can carry more clout collectively than individual entities, notably municipal ones. From beaches to bio-tech, from phosphate to higher education, from the Salvador Dali Museum to the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, from Tarpon Springs to Ybor City. It’s who we are.

To be sure, Tampa, home to TIA and a deep-water port, is the commercial hub, but our diversity and symbiosis are our strengths. The Suncoast, St. Petersburg, Tampa: None can be best served by going it solo in the marketplace. That’s why the recruiting of a GOP convention or World Cup games or Super Bowls or a Final Four can only be successful when the area is marketed regionally, relevant resources are marshaled and all strengths are played to.  

But speaking of sports.

It’s ironic — and less than encouraging — to see how raw parochialism has roared back in St. Petersburg over the Tampa Bay Rays.

We all know the story. An indoor facility — dated before its debut — that was built on spec because Pinellas and St. Petersburg needed to, well, land something that Hillsborough also wanted. Seemingly, Pinellas, which actually seceded from Hillsborough (in 1911), never got over not getting TIA, Tampa Stadium, Busch Gardens, the main campus of USF, a hockey arena and probably the Mons Venus. The point-of-pride (expansion Devil) Rays changed all that.

But at some point, and arguably that point has been manifest for some time, it became apparent that the status of the Rays could no longer be status quo. A change of ownership, a spiffed-up Tropicana Field, a cadre of good, young talent and a World Series appearance, alas, were still not enough. Not in a relatively “small,” hybrid market such as this one. A market that is weak in corporate (season-ticket buying) headquarters, non-existent in mass transit, persistent in its relocatee allegiances, location-challenged in its stadium location — and blessed, ironically, with lifestyle options superior to indoor summer baseball.

And this much we’ve known for a while: A new, retractable-roof facility is the best option to the outmoded cat-walk house that is among the worst facilities in Major League Baseball. Meaningfully retrofitting the Trop makes less financial sense that razing it.

But that doesn’t address location. The current site is ill-suited geographically – with Corpus Christi the nearest market to the west – and demographically. Tampa Bay is a 3-million population market, but the St. Petersburg location is on the fringe. That’s why the ABC Coalition, the 11-member, private group charged with examining new stadium scenarios, went regional in its look at possible alternatives to the Trop.

ABC, whose formation was strongly encouraged by St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, has acknowledged that its assessment of stadium sites includes some in Hillsborough County. The city of St. Petersburg’s response to that – before the final report is even issued – was to go ballistic. St. Pete development director Rick Musset fired off a heat-seeking epistle to ABC that questioned its “ranking” of downtown St. Petersburg behind downtown Tampa, West Shore and the Pinellas Gateway as most viable venue options. The criteria included population, drive times and business distribution. Mussett also reiterated that the Rays were contractually obligated to St. Petersburg until 2027.

A couple of points.

First, there’s precedent for professional sports franchises breaking leases, paying penalties and moving. For the right relocation offer, it’s a cost, albeit steep, of doing business.

Second, it’s eminently understandable why St. Petersburg would want to keep the Rays. But when they had a chance to weigh in on that futuristic Al Lang Field proposal, they acted insulted and blindsided.

It’s time for St. Petersburg officials to get serious about taking one for the team. The regional team. At some point, the choice will no longer be: Where in this Tampa Bay market is the best place for the Rays? The choice will be Charlotte or Las Vegas instead of St. Petersburg.

That’s what lies ahead. Despite the Rays’ feel-good story lines and good-guy images, the harsh reality is this: The Rays need a modern facility logically located in this asymmetrical market. A stadium that will produce higher revenue streams, which will, in turn, enable the Rays to retain their best players and stay relatively competitive with their obscenely deep-pocketed competitors in New York and Boston.

Just think about it. After all those years of hosting spring training and supporting minor league teams, this market finally landed Major League Baseball in 1998. And now there’s a chance that well in advance of 2027 bush league parochialism will prompt its departure.

Rogue Still In Vogue For Palin

OK, so how many of you who can’t countenance the depressing reality that Sarah Palin remains a viable presidential candidate and are infuriated that the media enabled her book-huckster tour – still watched either the Oprah Winfrey or the Barbara Walters’ interviews? Same here.

Enough to give perverse curiosity a bad name. Think: “Octo-Mom.”  

But from a journalistic rationale, one can’t help but wonder what might have resulted from the bizarre crucible that was the 2008 presidential campaign, when Palin was John McCain’s Flail Mary pass to revive his long-shot chances. Had she changed? Would, candidly, the word “grown” be operative? Had she morphed from over-the-top, GOP celebrity and Mainstream America’s favorite hockey mom to attractive, reasonably informed political operative and credible, 2012 presidential timber?

No.

Actually, the word “groan” would be more relevant. If anything, Palin is more arrogant. She has well-rehearsed, index-card answers to questions about quitting as Alaska’s governor, raising kids and extending Levi Johnston a Thanksgiving dinner invite (sort of). When in doubt economically, she will still drop Ronald Reagan’s name and simplistically repeat, mantra-like: “Encourage the free market; lower taxes; get government out of the way.” Next question.

Palin has too many fawning acolytes, conservative-pundit boosters and long, book-buying queues to not think she isn’t special and a genuine player on the world’s geopolitical stage if she so chooses. Not nearly enough lipstick for this pig-in-a-political-poke.

Anyhow, anyone else yell follow-up questions to Winfrey or Walters? To wit:

  • “OK, you’ve given us your take on the designer clothes, the tight scripts, the suffocating orchestration by the McCain campaign — and you’ve dumped all over Steve Schmidt and other handlers. By all accounts, however, Joe Biden didn’t go through this. Hell, the Mondale people didn’t put Geraldine Ferraro through anything remotely like that either. So why you? Was it because they flat-out knew you weren’t qualified to be vice president but were more than qualified to look good, effectively deliver a prepared speech and be a template for whatever Middle America wanted in a candidate – from being pro-life, to drilling for energy independence to field-dressing a liberal?
  • “Did you ever feel that it wouldn’t be fair to the country for someone as lightly read and blatantly uninformed as you – the governor of a state with fewer people than some congressional districts – to be a proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency?
  • “It sounds like you were frustrated by the McCain campaign’s straitjacketing. But, much more to the point, weren’t you, well, insulted? Or was that just the price of fame and a talk-show gig down the road?
  • “And, let me get this straight, you have no problem with the Israelis continuing to build settlements – because they ‘need the room.’ You don’t have to be enamored of nuance to know that this is woefully simplistic. Want to try that one again?
  • “You want this publicity because you want to sell as many copies of ‘Going Rogue’ as you can. This obviously pays a helluva lot better than being a moose-stew governor – and your tour fortuitously takes you to all kinds of key battleground states. So, would it be too much to ask that you dispense with scripted, pre-tested, simplistic answers to serious questions?
  • “Shouldn’t your ghost writer be here too?”

Irish Eyes On Meyer?

Once again Notre Dame seems primed to change head coaches. Incumbent Charlie Weis has been as disappointing as his two fired predecessors, Bob Davie and Ty Willingham. And once again the name of Florida’s Urban Meyer is prominent in the speculation about a successor.

To date, Meyer has done and said everything to indicate that he’ll remain in Gainesville. There are the key givens: He’s very-well compensated at $4 million per annum through 2014; he loves Gainesville living; he knows the post-Tebow talent pool is still deep; and he thrives on recruiting Florida and cherry-picking elsewhere. He even loves his neighbors, most notably the Billy Donovan family.

But then Notre Dame is unlike any other college football program. Its history is hallowed. Arguably, the right charismatic, recruiting-magnet coach could “wake up the thunder” again. Notre Dame, to be sure, has never been synonymous with oxymoronic “student-athletes.” It’s never been a repository of junior-college transfers and police-blotter recruits. There’s still that Golden Dome. “Touchdown Jesus.” That “Gipper” mystique that even transcends a certain former president’s. And (Knute) Rockne still resonates – at least in popular lore.  

And then there’s Notre Dame’s unique, national “subway alumni.” And its own network – NBC – for all home games. And whenever they’ve had enough of pedestrian records, underachieving coaches and a disgruntled fan base, the “Fightin’ Irish” go and get themselves a (Frank) Leahy, a (Ara) Parseghian or a (Lou) Holtz. They may be positioned for another blockbuster hire. And, come to think of it, Meyer used to be an assistant coach at Notre Dame. And his UF contract’s buy-out penalty is only $500,000.

But Meyer turned Notre Dame down once before – before he had experienced all that Florida can – and continues to – afford.

And Gator fans, no doubt, are inclined to put a lot of stock into what Meyer is saying this week. He says Notre Dame is “not an option” and that he’s “staying as long as they’ll have” him. And in the run-up to the big rivalry game with Florida State on Saturday, he said: “It’s what makes this job the best job in college football. It’s what makes this stadium the best stadium in college football…”

OK, bottom line. Brian Kelly of undefeated, fifth-ranked Cincinnati should be accorded the favorite’s role. Great track record, great surname – and leaving Cincinnati is a lot easier than leaving Gainesville.

Sports Shorts

*Speaking of UF, it’s near certain that, barring injury, Tim Tebow will soon become the SEC’s all-time, total-offense leader. He needs about 300 more yards to surpass – Chris Leak. Remember him? The “other quarterback” – who only led the Gators to a national championship – in the first year of the Tebow era.

*At one time “going bowling” was a big deal for college football programs. It was a reward for an outstanding season and salary leverage for the head coach. There weren’t that many bowls, and an invitation to one was prestigious and a sign of success.

No more. There are now more than 30 of them, and teams don’t even need a winning record to get invited to one. In fact, some teams – and Florida State comes readily to mind – will need a bowl win just to assure a non-losing season. And others, such as South Florida, are perennial also-rans in their conference, but still wind up – via conference affiliation – in a bowl game. Think: St. Petersburg and Pappajohns.com bowls. Again.

What it also means, of course, is that if you don’t “go bowling,” you’ve really had a lousy season.