Tuesday, Jun. 24, 2008
Opinion: Commercial crush should stay out of schools
Tod Palmer
sports editor
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ReprintAs I watched the Kansas City Royals tear up the Colorado Rockies on Monday, I found myself wondering about the future of high school athletics.
When I graduated high school (more than 12 years ago), weightlifting only was mandatory for the football team — and even then it was really more voluntary than mandatory.
Maybe five guys on my high school’s basketball team played AAU ball, and none were junior varsity guys.
For summer competition, basketball players ran the blacktop at Colman Park, which at that time was Raytown’s equivalent of Rucker Park. Played there a few times; I was awful.
But that’s beside the point.
Those days are over. The top ballplayers don’t take it to the blacktop anymore in the summer. They’re playing six games a day on the AAU circuit.
But looking forward 10 or 20 years raises the prospect of ever more dramatic changes.
Already, it is common for companies to sponsor various high school programs, providing various goods and services for a mention in the program.
It’s more about spreading good will, supporting the community and its kids than advertising, which makes it a great thing for all involved. It’s a necessary and important part of the high school experience.
Donated concessions support booster clubs and help pay for new uniforms and supplies among other things.
Halftime kick or halfcourt-shot contests also are commonplace and in keeping with the light-hearted spirit of high school athletics.
No objection there.
But it’s hard to know what to make of recent developments.
The Grapevine-Colleyville school district in Texas began offering ad space on its school buses, stadiums and even a middle-school roof a decade ago, according to USA Today.
Vernon Hills High School in the Chicago suburbs has played in Rust-Oleum Field since 2002, a Chicago Tribune article stated.
Districts in New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania openly sell the naming rights to schools, even high schools that have yet to be built.
Walled Lake, Mich., suggests a corporate donation of $25 million for the naming rights to a high school, while a middle school gym’s name can be had for $1 million and a weight room for the relatively miniscule sum of $500,000.
According to a New York Times article last year, Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimates the average urbanite sees 5,000 ad messages per day — up from 2,000 messages 30 years ago.
I don’t know about you, but I am not looking forward to the day when I cover the Wal-Mart Wombats taking on the Target Tigers at Garmin Field inside Home Depot stadium in a game sponsored by Exxon with the pregame tailgate sponsored by Lowe’s.
Hopefully, the insanity will stop before we have high school football teams or the pep band decked in uniforms covered with patches like some European soccer club.
I know budgets are tight and getting tighter every day.
I’m a homeowner; I get it. But I find this form of commercialism with respect to taxpayer institutions and targeted at a segment of the population too young to pay taxes as repugnant.
It seems like a slippery and unnecessary slope to travel.
And that brings us back to the Royals’ 8-4 victory: Now, if some savvy company wanted to give away free Olathe North replica football jerseys or Olathe South basketball jerseys, maybe a Colton Murray or Nick Williams bobblehead, that I could get behind.
As long, of course, as I got the free stuff too.