at this point in time they may as well name it, "BC cluster fuck stadium & events centre"

and the new advertising slogan can be:
"come enjoy the game LIVE... on our new HD tv's while you wait in the beer line up for a half hour."

Telus for the life of them can't even provide reliable telephone and internet service to a small business. I do not wish to have our BC landmark associated with a craptastic "service" provider

This is why you drink before the game,then while you are at the game,you can just sip on the overpriced watered down beer you spent waiting half a hour in line for and enjoy the night.

This.

If you're not pre-drinking, then you're doin'itwrong.

I used to be anti corporate name-changing of stadiums, but now I come to the realization that 40 million dollars from Telus would have been 40 million less of our tax dollars the public would have to pay.

In other words, I'd rather NOT pay my tax dollars just so we can keep the "BC Place name". Fuck, I can't remember the last time I was even in BC place anyways.

It's more about optics. $2 million per year is still $2 million per year. It's $2 million less per year that will have to come out of taxpayer pockets. When organizations like Community Living BC are severely underfunded and teachers are on strike, $2 million means a lot.

They can sell both the name and inside advertising. But the government is saying that they think they'll be able to enough advertising on the inside to make up for not having sold the naming rights.

But I work in the business and I can tell you there's no way. There's not enough advertisers or corporate presence in town to sell that much advertising in a building used as rarely as BC Place. The Lions nor Whitecaps nor all the car/boat shows combined will be able to generate that kind of demand.

The TELUS deal was a great one. $2M per year was a very good deal and more than the taxpayers could have ever dreamed to get (for example Air Canada only pays $1.5M per year for the ACC). TELUS had lost so much ground to Bell in terms of sponsor presence in Vancouver they decided they had to spare no expense to get the naming rights for this.

Personally I'm 100% convinced the Whitecaps/Bell agreement is what caused this debacle and now the politicians are simply making up excuses. And the losers at the end of the day are the taxpayers.

The government courted Telus(according to the news, so who the hell REALLY knows) but I think the problem was they wanted to double dip with Bell, or no one had thought that the white caps had their own deals in place.

Either way, they fucked up.

BC place is a Crown Corporation, does that mean the financials are public?

That would provide a tremendous amount of insight.

You'd never be able to double up because most sponsorships in this town are based on category exclusivity. In other words, once you sell the rights to a company, the contract will not allow your competitors to also have a presence. Problems inevitably arise though when building owners have one agreement but tenants and/or building users have their own.

For example, back when the All Star game was in Vancouver there was a behind-the-scenes brouhaha because GM had naming rights and vehicle exclusivity inside GM Place. However the NHL went along and sold automotive sponsorship for the All Star game to Dodge. Fireworks resulted.

There are creative ways around it though. For example, Pizza Hut currently has sponsorship of the Canucks as "official pizza" (which I am guessing was bundled as part of the deal when Pepsi won the soft drink rights last year), BUT you'll still see Boston Pizza rinkboards. How come? They adjusted the contract so they are the official "sports bar". lol.

Anyways, back on topic, the major problem here is the Whitecaps keep referring to the building as the Bell Pitch as part of their deal with Bell but that was never agreed to or endorsed by BC Place who were trying to court TELUS. This decision is basically the government trying to keep the Whitecaps happy.

I predict there will now be a legal dispute between the Whitecaps and PavCo to get rid of the name "Bell Pitch". Once that is settled, PavCo will go back to and try and convince them to reinstate the deal with TELUS. By that time there will have been an election possibly so who knows what will result.