A modest proposal: Northwestern sports must corporatize to survive

Aren’t we all tired of pretending? Aren’t we all tired of wandering through the minutes of our lives, giving lip service to rules and authorities that don’t understand us? There’s too much fraud in college sports. It’s time to make it real. It’s time to embrace the true American in all of us. It’s time to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit.

Kentucky has renamed its football stadium to Kroger Field. The old name, celebrating the Commonwealth of Kentucky, harkened back to an era in which ideals like sharing wealth and happiness mattered. No longer, friends, shall we let such ideals corrupt us. The gradual reclamation of stadiums by corporate interests and the all-seeing eye of marketing should be welcomed by the general populace.

Northwestern was ahead of this trend. After seven decades of Dyche Field, honoring some nobody mayor of Evanston and America’s past, we gave the name to Patrick Ryan of Aon Corporation. It caused a stir at the time, but now nobody cares. Money may not bring happiness, but it will get you naming rights. 

Northwestern has not gone far enough, in my opinion. In this era of new Lakefront Facilities, basketball arenas and lacrosse fields, we need something for the 21st century. Forget the Ryans, Martins, Millers and Crowns. We need full corporate seizure of the college sports athletics while the labor is still cheap and the television deals have not been cannibalized by no-good millennial cord-cutters.

I propose that Ryan Field become the full behemoth that it always could have been. Aon Coca-Cola Wal-mart Field presented by Zynga, maker of Words with Friends sounds like the optimal stadium name change. With this revenue, Northwestern can continue to fund its other projects without having to overspend on the new facilities. Students can simply call this stadium ACCWMFPZMWFW Field. In 25 years, will anyone care? I don’t think so.

The new basketball arena is a perfect opportunity to exercise this new corporate shillocracy that Northwestern must adopt. Aon Price Chopper Under Armour Arena with assistance from Apple Computer, bringing you Macintoshes and McIntosh is the perfect name for Northwestern’s eventual and necessary submission to the power of business.

How about the lacrosse field? I have a suggestion. Let’s just not call it a field. We should just call it, Verizon paid for this, buy our product. The vagaries of advertising are simply here to deceive the American people. In this new day and age, simply stating your intent and expecting others to follow blindly on their Facebook feeds is the new normal.

The Kellogg Business School can still be the Kellogg Business School, however. There’s enough advertising there.