Product Placement Name

High-resolution Prudential College Football Report title, from 1985 CBS College Football broadcast

"They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight!"

— Running Gag on Soccer Saturday

A form of Product Placement (and a specific type of Enforced Plug) where something of importance will be named after a sponsor. Often, this practice results in some pretty awkward names for things and making the announcers sound like characters in a commercial.

Common examples include sports highlight footage or recurring segments. Sponsors will sometimes try to work their slogan or a pun into the name, making the name even more awkward. You can see unusual executive-induced naming patterns in anything from trophies to arenas. Sometimes, the event or show itself will be sporting the name of a corporation, but in those cases, people usually drop the sponsor's name in casual conversation.

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Examples:

• All of the U.S. network sports departments jump all over this. For Fox's BCS coverage, they had the Built Ford Tough Pregame Show, CBS's NFL coverage has the Sprint Halftime Show (before 2005 it was the Nextel Halftime Show), the Geico Moment of the Game, their NCAA basketball coverage has AT&T at the Half (before mid-2007 it was Cingular at the Half), NBC had the Discover Card Intermission Report for hockey, CBS had The Prudential College Football Report for, what else, college football, and The Prudential At The Half for their NBA coverage— the list goes on.

• The 2008 American Gladiators revival had a few Subway replays and the "Toyota winning moment".

• Backyard Sports uses the fictional brand 110% Juice as the sponsor for the 110% Juice Player of the Game.

• Apart from the names of the leagues themselves, this is relatively rare in British football, with the notable exception of the former Total Network Solutions F.C. (which was the popular target of jokes on Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday from Jeff Stelling). To be fair, though, they represent the towns of Oswestry and Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain - not the most catchy names for a club (they now play as The New Saints F.C., officially The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid).
  • Some teams, such as Airbus UK Broughton F.C., Billingham Synthonia F.C., Metropolitan Police F.C. and Vauxhall Motors F.C., appear to be examples of this trope, but instead get their names from the fact they are (or were) works teams - teams made of employees of their respective companies.
  • Although some sides do have stadiums named after sponsors, this usually only occurs after the club build a new stadium and then rent the name out. Examples are the Emirates (Arsenal), the Toughsheet^note originally the Reebok, later the Macron and then the University of Bolton (Bolton Wanderers) and the King Power^note originally the Walkers (Leicester City).
  • After Mike Ashley bought Newcastle United FC, his ownership group announced that they would rename their home pitch of St James' Park to the incredibly awkward "sportsdirect.com @ St James' Park" (Sports Direct is a sports equipment chain Ashley also owns) to "showcase" the possibility of selling naming rights to the stadium. Fans grew furious over the new name and the blatant self-promotion it expressed. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, two years later it was re-named to just "Sports Direct Stadium". When naming and sponsorship rights were later sold to Wonga.com, the company decided to be generous and use their naming rights to change it back to St James' Park.
  • The Glazer Brothers were so used to owning and managing American sporting sides - with all that implies, as described on this page - that they thought they could treat Manchester United in a similar way. They were genuinely taken aback by the force and violence of the reaction they received to what they thought from experience at home were routine business management practices, that they had to take a crash course in the history and traditions of British football. To their credit, they realised they were dealing with different attitudes in a different country and abandoned their more controversial (by British standards) proposals for their new buy.

• As bad as it might seem, it used to be even worse in the early days of radio and TV. Shows that were named after their sponsors were very common in those days. The practice began in the 1920s as a way to circumvent rules against direct advertising on radio, but it stuck around even after those rules were lifted in the early 1930s. This trend started to end in the 1960s and the concept of corporate naming declined only to revive in the 1990s.
  • The Eveready Hour, which ran from 1923 to around 1930 was not only the first "variety show" but also the Ur-Example.
  • A few bands of the 1920s and early 1930s made records under their radio names, such as The Clicquot Club Eskimos (Harry Reser) and The Ipana Troubadours (Sam Lanin), among others.
  • While retroactively known as The Jack Benny Program, the show was known on radio as The Canada Dry Program, The Chevrolet Program, The General Tire Revue, The Jell-O Program, The Grape-Nuts Flakes Program and of course, The Lucky Strike Program.
  • Similarly, Fibber McGee and Molly was known as The Johnson Wax Program while The Charlie McCarthy Show ran as The Chase & Sanborn Program.
  • Examples of TV shows include Camel News Caravan, the ancestor of the NBC Nightly News. Nowadays sponsorship of national news programs are avoided to prevent conflicts-of-interest.
  • Paul Whiteman's Goodyear Revue
  • The Colgate Comedy Hour
  • The Philco Television Playhouse
  • The Voice of Firestone
  • Texaco Star Theater
  • Kraft Suspense Theatre
  • Ford Theatre (Not to be confused with Ford's Theatre, where president Lincoln was shot)
  • The Ford Show was a confusing one: the show starred Tennessee Ernie Ford and was sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. The latter gave the show its name.
  • The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports
  • The Bell Telephone Hour
  • The absolute worst offender might be Your Kaiser Dealer Presents Kaiser-Frazer "Adventures In Mystery" Starring Betty Furness in "Byline". Yep, that's the whole title, although it was usually shortened to Byline, and the DuMont broadcast of that show (they simulcasted it with ABC) called it News Gal.
  • The infamous quiz show scandal erupted after sponsors pulled their ad money from quizzes after it became obvious that a lot of them were rigged.
  • Repórter Esso (various Latin American countries, primarily Brazil and Chile)
  • Martini al Instante ("Martini on the Spot") (Chile, 1970s)
  • El Observador Creole ("The Creole Observer") (Venezuela)
  • Hallmark Hall of Fame (current)
  • Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (both original and second versions)
  • Panasonic Drama Theatre (Japan, current)
  • Each episode of The Dana Carvey Show had a different sponsor, and integrated the sponsor into the show's title; for example, the first two episodes were The Taco Bell Dana Carvey Show and The Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show. This was done as an homage to the shows mentioned above. This got him into trouble as Taco Bell pulled their sponsorship after Dana Carvey interrupted one of their commercials to mock it and started off one show with a skit about a lactating Bill Clinton which was seen as "too much for something three minutes after Home Improvement".

• The bowl games in U.S. college football are full of these, such as the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual.
  • At least those still have the original name, unlike the Peach Bowl for a time (it got back its old name, though prefaced by Chick-fil-A, in the 2014 season).
  • In the 2013 season, there were twelve bowls whose official names consisted solely of the name of the corporate sponsor and the word "Bowl". As of the 2023 season, the count is eight.^*The 68 Ventures, Duke's Mayo, Famous Toastery, Guaranteed Rate, Pop-Tarts, ReliaQuest, and Quick Lane Bowls directly bear the sponsor's name. The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is sponsored by the Idaho Potato Commission, the marketing board for the state's potato growers. The Famous Toastery Bowl is normally the Bahamas Bowl, but the Nassau stadium that's the usual host is closed for renovations in 2023; this game is expected to return to the islands in 2024.

• Brazilian radio broadcasts of soccer tend to do that a lot. In fact, some of them have become catchphrases that people recognize easily, like Mercurio Transportes, the best time (when announcing the time of the game, also playing with the fact that the sponsor is a transporting company).

• Broadcasts of Buffalo Sabres hockey games feature the "Carubba Collision", a replay of the game's most highlight-worthy check, named for a local auto body repair chain.

• When Stephen Colbert decided to run for the 2008 presidential campaign, The Colbert Report promoted that it was sponsored by Doritos, and dubbed it the Hail to the Cheese, Nacho Cheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign. However, after realizing that their sponsorship may be considered illegal campaign contributions, he subtly changed it to The Stephen Colbert, Hail to the Cheese, Nacho Cheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign Coverage.

• Deadliest Catch doesn't show the crab count before every commercial. They show the Coors Light Crab Count.

• Dementia Smackdown has the Fump bump of the night.

• In March 2017, Dodge started The Fast and the Furious Sales Event. Yep, even cars may have to resort to copying movie names.

• Many Formula One races ("Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix") and teams ("Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro").
  • Although the brand names and liveries are very deeply ingrained into the sport, to such a point that one can barely imagine F1 without some of them (e.g. JPS Lotus since the 60s, Marlboro McLarens, Rothmans Williams etc.).

• Game Show Network originals since 2007 or so are known for sponsoring anything associated with the game show.
  • Catch 21's first season was sponsored by Kraft Real Mayo. From time to time, the power chips in the end game were renamed "Burger King Power Chips".
  • The final season of Woolery Lingo had the bonus round sponsored by Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch. The Engvall Lingo not only had mystery balls sponsored by Progressive insurance, but they also gave contestants a bonus letter in the first word of the bonus round.
  • The 2009 version of The Newlywed Game obviously has the most of these. The first season's bonus question was sponsored by eHarmony.com. There have been questions sponsored such companies as Miracle Whip, Ashley Furniture Homestores, and Macy's. Not to mention a week sponsored by Cost Plus World Market, shows where winners also got a Toshiba camcorder, and dare I say, the Reeds In The Lead Round?

• The IndyCar Series picked up ApexBrasil as their fuel supplier in 2009. Seems cheesy at first when you hear the phrase "ApexBrasil Green Flag" at the start of the race, but then you realize Apex is an ethanol supplier (a "green" alternative to gasoline and diesel) and the Fridge Brilliance hits.

• Last Comic Standing had at least one season where the contestant with the most viewer votes would automatically advance to the next round or, in the host's words, get a "Capital One No Hassle Pass".

• The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Founded in 1924, it could easily pass as the Ur-Example and Trope Codifier. It's still run entirely by Macy's employees. To the point that all featured performers are temporarily hired by Macy's!

• Not just the stadiums. New Jersey has a Major League Soccer team called the New York Red Bulls.^note Technically, Red Bull doesn't own the team, although it has the same control that team owners have in most other sports leagues. MLS has a "single-entity" structure, in which the league actually owns all the teams. Each franchise has a controlling investor which is in fact a shareholder in the league. Of course, they play at Red Bull Arena.
  • Curly Lambeau asked his employer for money, uniforms, and use of a field for a football team he was putting together. His employer, the Indian Packing Company (a meatpacker) agreed on the condition the team be named after the company. Thus, the Green Bay Packers.
  • New York's football team, the Buffalo Bills, was said to be flirting with a move to Toronto, and part of the reason was that when the original naming rights contract for the team's stadium expired in 1998, the founding owner, Ralph Wilson, named the stadium after himself rather than enter into another sponsorship contract. After Wilson's death in 2014, his family sold the team, and the new owner, Terry Pegula, changed course. The Bills' stadium then became New Era Field, but after a few years New Era ended its sponsorship and the venue became Bills Stadium for a time until becoming Highmark Stadium.

• Speaking of Red Bull, besides the New York Red Bulls, they also operate a few other sports teams: In soccer there's FC Red Bull Salzburg (Austria), RB Leipzig (Germany), and Red Bull Bragantino (Brazil), in Hockey EC Red Bull Salzburg (Austria) and EHC Red Bull München (Germany), and auto racing has Red Bull Racing, and a junior team AlphaTauri (former Toro Rosso).

• Many shows are no longer just "presented by *sponsor*", they're "driven by Chevrolet", "built by The Home Depot", etc.

• The minor-league hockey team in Hershey, Pennsylvania (yes, that Hershey) was originally called the "Hershey Bars"; but since advertising in team names was frowned upon, they were renamed and stayed the "Hershey Bears".
• In the same league as the Bears there's the San Jose Barracuda, named after a network security sponsor. But given the team is the minor league associate of the San Jose Sharks, it doesn't come off as advertisment as much as a connection to the parent franchise through another predatory fish.

• A new version of this trope is to name the electronic first down line after a sponsor, like the "Overstock.com First Down Line". Or the red zone: Westwood One broadcasts refer to it as the "Heinz red zone".^note For international readers: The "red zone" in American football is the part of the field between the opponent's 20-yard line and their end zone—when an offense reaches this point, scoring is imminent. Thus, it's a phrase that comes up about several dozen times in a standard football broadcast. In the U.S., Heinz is best known as a ketchup brand which puts "Heinz Red Zone" displays in many supermarkets during football season.
  • In some college markets with fanbases in heavy farming communities, they call it the Case IH Red Zone. Case IH is a farm machinery company whose vehicles are mostly red, to compete with John Deere, whose vehicles are mostly green.
  • CBS Sports Network has liked bringing out the "Verizon Red Zone" and "Barbasol Close Shave".
  • The 2014 NFL preseason (in preseason play, most broadcasts are handled by the teams themselves rather than the usual NFL broadcasters) brought sponsored, virtual red zones to horrific levels, with the San Francisco 49ers infamously covering it with tacky Toyota logos. But nothing comes close to the New Orleans Saints' Slap Ya Mama Red Zone◊, named after a spice brand with an Intentionally Awkward Title.

• All the Spanish basketball teams fall into this, to the point most great teams are remembered by the sponsor. The only team to totally avoid this is the incredibly wealthy Real Madrid. Even their also incredibly wealthy sworn rivals, Barcelona, have their own sponsor. Baskonia^note from the Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz averted this trope for the 2016–17 season, but got a new sponsor the next season.

• Many major stakes races in American Thoroughbred Racing have name sponsors, such as The Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands^note Yum! has since been replaced by the Woodford Reserve distillery and (formerly) The Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge.^note The Classic now has no name sponsor. It could have been worse, though ... had Yum! wanted to name it after one of their specific brands, we might have had the Kentucky Fried Chicken Derby.

• NASCAR has three main touring series. The top-level series most recently exhibited this trope in the 2019 season as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, but NASCAR changed to a tiered sponsorship model for that series from 2020 forward, calling it simply the NASCAR Cup Series with four sponsors called "Premier Partners". The other two series still exhibit the trope: the Xfinity Series (second-rate supplementary series to the Cup Series for less experienced drivers), and the Craftsman Truck Series (NASCAR races with pickup trucks).
  • Larry the Cable Guy has a bit about feminine hygiene products as NASCAR sponsors. It's funnier when he does it than it sounds when summarized like this.
  • It was pointed out when Sprint bought out Nextel and changed the names on their sponsorship that there's another type of racing called "sprint cars" that predated Sprint the corporation by decades...
  • Aside from the Daytona 500 and the Party at the Poconos 400 (which is, however, presented by Walmart), every race has a sponsor too. They used to have normal names like the Firecracker 400 (summer Daytona race) and the Southern 500 (Darlington) and the Brickyard 400, but now we have names such as the Coke Zero Sugar 400, Go Bowling at The Glen, and more egregiously, the Crown Royal Presents the "Your Name Here" 400 at the Brickyard powered by BigMachineRecords.com (it tied in with a promotion where people could nominate a personal hero for a chance to be part of the race's name. They've since flirted with calling it the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Records 400 and the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard powered by Florida Georgia Line). Their lower-tier series, the Xfinity Series, is prone to having even weirder sponsorships, such as the TreatMyClot.com 300 and the My Bariatric Solutions 300. One year, the aforementioned TreatMyClot race became the Roseanne 300. Yes, as in the show, because Fox airing a race sponsored by ABC in a series effectively sponsored by NBC makes absolute sense.

• All baseball teams in Japan are named after their sponsors or corporate owners, rather than where they play.
  • The baseball teams in Tokyo are the Yomiuri Giants and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
  • A team previously in Tokyo and now in Sapporo is the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. (The company Nippon Ham is the largest stockholder in the team; thus, the name is meant to be grouped as Nippon-Ham Fighters, not Nippon Ham Fighters.)
• The tournament between the top soccer clubs of Latin America is the CONMEBOL Libertadores Bridgestone,^note a Japanese company best known as a maker of vehicle parts, especially tires also known as the Copa Libertadores. It's previously been sponsored as the Santander^note a Spanish bank with large Latin American operations Copa Libertadores and Toyota Copa Libertadores.^note The Spanish-language Copa Libertadores, translating to "Liberators' Cup", is universally used by English-language soccer media.
• In the world of Twenty20 cricket, the Indian Premier League uses this as its fuel; it's not just a boundary for 6, the commentators will casually call it a "DLF Maximum". After DLF was replaced by Pepsi as the title sponsor in 2013, it has become a "Yes Bank Maximum", though one day a commentator called one a "Pepsi Max" (probably as an Ascended Meme, given that so many people were joking about that possibility before Yes Bank became a sponsor too). But the more infamous examples in the past were the "Citi Moment of Success" and the "Karbonn Kamaal Catch" (Karbonn is a cellphone maker, Kamaal is a word meaning "perfection")
  • There are also corporately-owned and sponsored teams too: Royal Challengers Bangalore are owned by an Indian brewery (who produce a whiskey called Royal Challenge), the newly-formed Sunrisers Hyderabad are owned by the media company Sun TV, and the former Deccan Chargers were owned by the Deccan Chronicle newspaper.
• Not only are all of the teams in the Philippine Basketball Association owned by major Filipino companies, but they also have no home markets either! The Alaska Aces are the only team in the entire league with a name that seems relatively normal in comparison to the others (which contained such gems in the past as the "Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters", and literally the "Kia Sorento"), or Hilarious in Hindsight if you expect them to be sponsored by Farmer Ahab Blubber Nuggets ("They're Chewy!"). They are actually named for a milk company which has nothing to do with Alaska.
• The Barclays Premier League, Barclays Women's Super League^note England, the cinch Premiership,^note Scotland; the sponsor is an online used car marketplace the PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa, LaLiga EA Sports,^note Spain men, finetwork Liga F^note Spain women, Serie A TIM^note Italy and several other European football (soccer) leagues. The most notable aversion is Germany's Bundesliga, while the Premier League decided to forego a title sponsor after Barclays' contract expired.
  • The Cups in England have also been given sponsors' names. The EFL Cup (historically the League Cup) has been known as, over the years, the Worthington Cup, the Littlewoods Cup, the Carling Cup, and several others (it's now the Carabao Cup). The FA Cup long resisted the trend, compromising for a while with "The FA Cup with Budweiser", but it's now "The Emirates FA Cup". The trophy competed for by those sides in Leagues 1 and 2 (third and fourth tiers), the EFL Trophy, is currently the Bristol Street Motors Trophy, and has been known as the LDV Vans Trophy among others.
• Bayer 04 Leverkusen are historically associated with the pharmaceutical company Bayer, and their stadium is the BayArena. This has somewhat more organic roots than usual, as the team started as the football division of a sporting club for the company's employees (historically a common practice, especially in Germany); the club was founded in 1904, hence the name. The firm's iconic pill logo (a white circle with "Bayer" written both horizontally and vertically, intersecting at the "Y"; if you've ever seen a Bayer aspirin pill, it's that) is the centerpiece of the team's logo, and the team is nicknamed Die Werkself ("The Company's Eleven").
  • Pretty much all football teams have a primary sponsor, whose logo goes where the team name would on a basketball jersey. You could be forgiven if you think that Arsenal FC are the "Fly Emirates".
• How's about the NAB Cup played at the AAMI stadium? (For non-Aussies: NAB is the National Australia Bank and AAMI does insurance.) Channel Nine's coverage of Australian cricket even has little quiz questions sponsored by Johnnie Walker.
• Averted, briefly, by the Australian Football League in 2009, who refused to recognize the naming rights to Melbourne's Docklands Stadium after they had been acquired by Etihad Airlines, primarily because the league had rival Qantas as an official sponsor. (The Melbourne venue is now known commercially as Marvel Stadium. Yes, that Marvel.)
• In Brazil, teams of sports other than soccer usually have the sponsor name along with the name of the place/club it represents - and sometimes, just the sponsors: the women's volleyball team from Rio de Janeiro is Rexona/AdeS (for some time it ran as the multinational that manufactures both products, Unilever).
  • Also, in overseas soccer matches, not only do they have the normal advertisements on the walls (albeit in LED format), they have ads painted on the field, angled just right so the camera can catch them.

• The Canadian junior hockey trophy used to be named the Mastercard Memorial Cup. Yes, a trophy named for fallen World War I veterans has been commercialized. Even more hilariously, it sounds like it was named in memory of a fallen sponsor! Averted since 2019 when Kia Motors became the sponsor: it is now addressed as the "Memorial Cup presented by Kia".

• On professional baseball broadcasts (major and minor league), it seems to have become de rigueur for a wireless phone company to sponsor pitching changes, usually punning on the "call to the bullpen" the manager makes to effect the change.
  • And every radio broadcast has the fifteenth out of the game (the final out of the top of the third) sponsored by Geico, which reminds you that 15 minutes could save you 15% on your auto insurance.
    • And during the pregame show (at least on Yankees broadcasts), there's "It's about 15 minutes to first pitch, and 15 minutes (you know the rest)..."
  • This one shows up in football, too, particularly at the start of the 4th quarter: "If you don't think things can change in 15 minutes, call your local Geico agent!"

• Philadelphia Flyers hockey broadcasts have no fewer than three named replays: the "Allstate Good Hands Play of the Game", the "Wells Fargo Great Check of the Game" (which was renamed along with the Flyers' home arena when Wachovia became Wells Fargo) and the "Toyota Turning Point".
  • And every time the Flyers score a goal, Jim Jackson enthuses "Flyer X scores for a case of Tastykakes!", although given the great popularity of Tastykake's products in Philadelphia (particularly Krimpets), this sounds less forced than the others.
  • Wait until football season to hear one of the most fun examples of this trope yet, courtesy of a Philly-area auto dealer: "The Matt Blatt Splat of the game!"

• Pick a stadium, any American major-league or major-college sporting venue built in the last decade or two. For that matter, just about any major sports venue anywhere.
  • The Denver Broncos moved out of Mile High Stadium and into INVESCO Field at Mile High. INVESCO then bailed on the stadium, and it then became Sports Authority Field at Mile High. And then Sports Authority went belly-up in 2016... but the Broncos kept their name on the stadium anyway through the 2017 season. It was Broncos Stadium at Mile High in 2018 before becoming Empower Field at Mile High in 2019.
  • Mocked when Denver's mayor Wellington Webb renamed the street where the stadium sits to Mile High Stadium Boulevard out of spite.
  • The Toronto SkyDome became the Rogers Centre.
  • In Tokorozawa, Japan, the pro baseball stadium was named after two sponsors for two seasons as the Invoice Seibu Dome.
  • Some advertisers just sound right. Great American Insurance advertises on the Reds' stadium as the Great American Ball Park. God bless America! Likewise, Great Western Savings and Loan was the namesake of the Great Western Forum, where the Los Angeles Lakers used to play.
  • Chase Field in Phoenix was formerly Bank One Ballpark, the name change falling in line with JPMorgan Chase's merger with Bank One in 2005. Arguably, "chase" evokes the feel of baseball better, making the stadium's corporate sponsorship not so obvious.
  • Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, was another corporate sponsor that made perfect sense for both the home town and the team name, and resulted in a great name for a stadium. Until Miller decided not to renew its contract when it ran out at the end of 2020, with the stadium name changing to American Family Field (after an insurance company).
  • The San Jose Sharks' home arena has always been sponsored by computer companies. The most creative was when Hewlett-Packard got the naming rights: the designated word was changed to one that evoked an actual product, HP Pavilion at San Jose. (The current name, SAP Center at San Jose, not so much.)
  • A stealth version: Las Vegas Ballpark, which opened in 2019 as the new home of Triple-A baseball's Las Vegas Aviators, sounds like it averts this trope... but doesn't. The naming rights are owned by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The hint of the sponsorship is that promotional signage contains the CVA's trademarked "Las Vegas" logo.
  • Another stealth version can be seen just outside Paris, where the home stadium of rugby union club Racing 92 is known as Paris La Défense Arena, with La Défense being a purpose-built business district that hosts the headquarters of many major French corporations. It turns out that "Paris La Défense", the company that manages said business district, ponied up to put its name on the stadium.
  • Still another stealth version: The football and soccer stadium for Dixie State University (now known as Utah Tech), located in St. George, Utah, became Greater Zion Stadium in 2020. Because St. George is in the same county that includes the main entrance to Zion National Park, one might think that this trope was averted. Not quite. The naming rights are held by said county (Washington County), which calls its tourism promotion agency the Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Office.
  • Also Maimonides Park, a baseball park in Brooklyn that's home to the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones. While the ballpark is named for a major local hospital that was historically Jewish but is now nonsectarian, the hospital was named after famed medieval rabbi Moses ben Maimon, commonly known in the Western world as Maimonides.
  • However, there are a couple of aversions:
    • Sweden's largest stadium and home to the men's national football (soccer) team, located in the Stockholm-area community of Solna, opened in 2009 as Swedbank Arena. In 2012, the bank transferred the sponsorship to the anti-bullying nonprofit organization Friends, which the bank heavily supports. The Friends name will stay in place until July 2024, when the contract runs out and Norwegian hotel company Strawberry becomes the new sponsor.
    • Shortly before the University of Kentucky completed its current baseball park in 2018, the naming rights were bought by the Kentucky Farm Bureau, an advocacy organization for the state's farmers that's better known to the non-farming public for its insurance business. The KFB donated the rights to a state agency, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, which christened the venue as Kentucky Proud Park, after the brand name it uses in its marketing campaign for Kentucky-made products.
  • Australia has quite a few as well. For example:
    • The main stadium of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, non-sponsored name Stadium Australia, has been Telstra Stadium and ANZ Stadium, and is now Accor Stadium.
    • Docklands Stadium in Melbourne has been Colonial Stadium (after an insurance company) and Telstra Dome, and is now Marvel Stadium.
    • Melbourne Rectangular Stadium is commercially known as AAMI Park.
    • Brisbane's main rectangular venue of Lang Park is currently Suncorp Stadium.
    • Perth's largest stadium, generically Perth Stadium, is commercially Optus Stadium. Similarly, the Perth Rectangular Stadium is sponsored as HBF Park. The latter stadium was originally Perth Oval before being reconfigured as purely rectangular in the early 2010s, and had been sponsored as Members Equity Stadium, ME Bank Stadium, and nib Stadium.

• Play any EA Sports game, count the number of interface and gameplay elements that have "EA", "EA Sports" or "[Title of Game]" tacked on in front of them.
  • EA takes this pretty far. In Fight Night Round 3, one fight is the Dodge Caliber championship, which plants a car in the background during the right, and makes a huge deal out of the fact that your character wins one (it has no effect on gameplay at all, naturally.) It's even possible to hire The Burger King as your trainer.
  • Ads are so ingrained in sports broadcasts that the thought of not seeing any is now mentally jarring- so all game developers now make sure their pro sports titles are as ad-packed as their real-life counterparts. Yep, it's The Coconut Effect.

• Poker tournaments on ESPN break out the "Degree All-In Moment" Once an Episode when someone puts his last chips on the line. The antiperspirant also sponsors the "Degree Check Mark" to show someone has the best possible hand.
  • And the "Planters Good Instinct Moment".
  • More recently, there has been the "Jack Link's Beef Jerky Wild Card Hand", a Once an Episode hand where one of the player's hands (the "Wild Card hand") is hidden from the viewers, who are left to guess what cards that player is holding. It's a Running Gag that color commentator Norman Chad is poor at guessing these, though he actually does get it right sometimes.

• Showjumping and dressage are incredibly expensive equestrian sports requiring not only expensive equipment, but also strings of pedigree horses to be kept in top condition. One of the first stars who was unable to fund his involvement through an "independent income" (shorthand for "do you belong to the British monied upper classes?") was blunt Yorkshireman Harvey Smith, who in The '70s courted controversy by seeking outside commercial sponsorship. The stuffier end of the sport deplored the fact his horses ended up with strange names. Imagine the BBC's plummy-voiced commentator intoning the following;
  ''And the next competitor here at Earl's Court is Mr Harvey Smith, on Sanyo Sound-Surround Stereo System....

• WWE's programs feature sponsored "Slam of the Night" ("Smack of the Night" on SmackDown) and "Rewind" segments that occasionally change names depending on who's sponsoring them (for example, the "Snickers Cruncher Crunch of the Night" when said candy bar was introduced). Around the time the 1999 B-movie Bats was coming out, they had the "Bat-Ass of the Week", which made no sense at all.

• There was a women's golf tournament some time ago called the "Coca-Cola Invitational, sponsored by Safeway". This makes for a double example of this trope.
  • None of the four men's major golf tournaments have sponsors; four of the five women's majors do. In senior (over-50) men's golf, two of the five majors have title sponsors, and two others have "presenting sponsors" whose names appear after the tournament title.
  • This is common in the college game, where a stadium will have one sponsor and the field itself will have another. And if that stadium hosts a bowl game, you could conceivably have the [A] Bowl from [B] Field at [C] Stadium.

• Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! parodied this mercilessly in the "Jim & Derrick" episode, a parody of the likes of MTV and extreme sports which featured the VistaFresh Mobile Viral Clip of the Week and numerous other segments sponsored by Turbo Fuel Maximum Energy Soda. Well, except for the Turbo Fuel promotion sponsored by Tordo's Xtreeme Flavor Dust.

• When CBS airs golf, Peter Kostis will invariably analyze a player's swing with the "Konica Minolta...Bizhub...Swing Vision Camera".
• From 2020 to 2022, Wheel of Fortune had a weekly home viewer contest called the "T-Mobile Puzzle of the Week". During Season 38, Toss-Up puzzles on these episodes were also sponsored by T-Mobile, including the "T-Mobile Triple Toss-Up".
• Wipeout Canada doesn't have a sweeper round. It has a Motrin Sweeper Round.
• Some rapid transit operators have sold the naming rights for lines and stations as a source of extra revenue:
  • SEPTA, the transit authority in Philadelphia and its suburbs, renamed Pattison station to AT&T station in 2010. The rights were transferred to NRG Energy in 2018; the station is now known as NRG station. The organization also renamed the Media/Elwyn commuter rail line to the Media/Wawa line when the line was extended to a new Wawa station that serves the corporate headquarters of the convenience store chain of the same name. Though in this case the chain is actually ultimately named for the station. The new station was a rebuilding of a former station of the same name that had lent its name to the neighborhood, from which the store chain got its name, though it had been closed for decades. SEPTA took sponsorship money from the chain to fund the rebuild, which is why the company logo is used on station signs.
  • Cleveland's bus rapid transit line is named the HealthLine in a deal with a pair of hospitals.
  • The Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street station of the New York City Subway became Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center in 2009 as part of a $4 million deal; the Barclays Center (home of the Brooklyn Nets) is nearby.
  • The Delhi Metro leased the naming rights for dozens of stations beginning in 2014, which resulted in stations with names like "Honda 2 Wheelers Vishwavidyalaya".
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged: While waiting in his arena for the Cell games to start, Cell receives a call from Hetap Soda wanting to be his sponsor. He's a bit taken aback, but amusedly accepts.
  Cell: Look, I understand you do sponsor all forms of sporting events, but just so we're clear, you do realize that everyone dies if I win, right? ...Yes? Yeah, I guess it is a win-win for you then, isn't it? Alright then, it's officially "The Cell Games Presented by Hetap!"

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