Lincoln Financial Group paid for the naming rights of the Philadelphia Eagles’ stadium, while Citizens Bank slapped its moniker on the Phillies’ ballpark. The 76ers and the Flyers play at the former Wells Fargo Center, now called the Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Right across the river in Brooklawn, New Jersey, where the boys and girls of Alice Costello Elementary School play dodgeball at recess, sits a slightly humbler venue: the ShopRite of Brooklawn Gymnasium, so named back in 2001. Brooklawn was perhaps the first public school district to sell naming rights to a corporate entity. It wasn’t the last.
The school board in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., is currently drafting an official district policy on selling naming rights to businesses. Maybe the Langley High School Saxons will soon be playing field hockey on Blackwater Field (or whatever that company is named now).
Trying to paint this as something other than a pure economic transaction, the school board is framing this new policy as a continuation of its ongoing practice of naming schools and facilities after honorable figures.
The proposed rule change states, “the School Board shall also have the responsibility to authorize naming rights for portions of school facilities in order to provide recognition for private or corporate entities that make a significant contribution to benefit Fairfax County Public Schools.”
This isn’t limited to stadiums and gyms, but could also include “laboratory spaces, auditoriums, and other facility areas that the board may contemplate as part of a comprehensive naming rights program.”
But this is where politics enters. School board member Ricardy Anderson worried about some potential corporate sponsors being “offensive to my community.”
Ricardy continued: “Even though we have these guardrails, I’m going to put it out there — everybody loves Chick-fil-A, but not everybody wants to have their politics be stuck in their faces every day.”
This is Northern Virginia, where one soccer field is already named after defense contractor Boeing, but the liberals on this school board aren’t worried about the Minuteman Intercontinental Global Studies Classroom or the Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk Robotics Lab — they’re worried that second graders might put on a spring concert in an auditorium named after a fast-food joint owned by Christians.
Would Tesla or SolarCity be more acceptable sponsors for the politicians of Fairfax? Is the Washington Post now too right-wing to be allowed to sponsor a lecture hall?
Mixing corporate America with K-12 education was always going to be fraught, but inside the Beltway, this comes with an unhealthy dose of politics.