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{{quote|''"They'll be dancing in the streets of [[wikipedia:The New Saints F.C.#.22Dancing in the Streets.22|Total Network Solutions]] tonight!"''|[[Running Gag]] on '''''Soccer Saturday'''''}}
A form of [[Product Placement]] seen mainly in sports shows and other competitions, but not exclusive to them, 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 [[Stuck on Band-Aid Brand|characters in a commercial]].
The most common thing to get this treatment is highlight footage, where sponsors will sometimes try to work their slogan or a pun into the name, making the name even more awkward. But it's not the only thing. You can see unusual executive-induced naming patterns in anything from trophies to arenas. Sometimes, the event itself will be [[Incredibly Lame Pun|sporting]] the name of a corporation, but in those cases, people usually drop the sponsor's name in casual conversation.
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* 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 (ie. JPS Lotus since the 60's, Marlboro McLarens, Rothmans Williams etc.).
* 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.
* 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 "[[Hello, Insert Name Here|Flyer X]] scores for a case of Tastykakes!"
** 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!"
* NASCAR's Sprint Cup, formerly known as the Nextel Cup, formerly known as the Winston Cup.
** [[Larry the Cable Guy]] has a bit about feminine hygiene products as NASCAR sponsors. [[Better Than It Sounds|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...
* Pick a stadium, any American major league sporting venue built in the last decade or two. This has become less grating over time, though, since it's so common.
** However, when mergers and takeovers come into play, it becomes annoying with all the renames. Just ask San Francisco Giants fans.
** Sometimes, it remains grating, like when [[Fan Nickname|the Jake]] became Progressive Field, or when the Broncos moved out of Mile High Stadium and into INVESCO Field at Mile High (yes, it's actually a different stadium). INVESCO then bailed on the stadium, now known as Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
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*** The Toronto Skydome became the ([[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|ugh]]) Rogers Centre.
** On the other hand, some advertisers just sound right. Great American Insurance advertises on the Reds' stadium as the Great American Ballpark. God bless America!
** 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.
* Not just the stadiums. New Jersey has a soccer (yes, Americans play soccer) team called the New York [[wikipedia:Red Bull|Red Bulls]]. Of course, they play at Red Bull Arena.
** New York's football team, the Buffalo Bills, is said to be flirting with a move to Toronto, and part of the reason is that the owner, Ralph Wilson, named the stadium after himself rather than accept sponsorship money.
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** At least those still have the original name, unlike the Peach Bowl.
** As of the 2008 season, there are seven bowls whose official names consist solely of the name of the corporate sponsor and the word "Bowl", and the EagleBank bowl '''never''' had any other name.
* Sponsorships can get awkward if the sponsor goes bankrupt just before a major event (like "Kodak Theatre" as home since 2001 of the annual Academy Awards show), forcing the branding to be abruptly removed.
* The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
** And "Thanksgiving" is occasionally omitted.
*** At least that Parade has both history and was originally (and still is) run entirely by Macy's employees.
* The 2008 ''[[American Gladiators]]'' revival had a few Subway replays and the "Toyota winning moment".
* ''[[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".
* 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.
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** 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, [[I Am Not Shazam|the name is meant to be grouped as
** The tournament between the top soccer clubs of Latin America is the Santander Libertadores Cup (Santander is a Spanish bank), previously the Toyota Libertadores Cup.
*** The same thing happens in the Philippine Basketball Association as well: the Alaska Aces are named for Alaska Milk, they ''don't'' play in Alaska!
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** 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 team now known as Rio/Unilever was for some time Rexona/AdeS.
*** 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.
* [[World Wrestling Entertainment|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).
** The most cringe-worthy one was when the horrible B-movie film ''Bats'' was coming out. They had the "Bat-Ass of the Week", which made no sense at all.
* As bad as it might seem, it used to be even worse in the early days of radio and TV. Examples would be shows with the sponsor's name. This trend started to end in the 1960s and the concept of corporate naming declined only to revive in the 1990s. Examples of TV shows:
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** ''Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom'' (current)
** ''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 1. Dana Carvey interrupted one of their commercials to mock it and 2. Started off the show with a skit about a lactating Bill Clinton which was seen as "too much for something three minutes after ''[[Home Improvement (TV series)|Home Improvement]]''".
** It was mostly due to sponsors threatening to pull their sponsorship that the infamous quiz show scandals happened.
* A recent women's golf tournament was the "Coca-Cola Invitational, sponsored by Safeway." So now we get a double sponsor on the game.
** 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.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080706125450/http://hosted.filefront.com/
* 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 mascot as your trainer.''
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*** 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!"
* Particularly galling is the Canadian junior hockey trophy gaining
** Along with making it sound like it was named in memory of a fallen sponsor!
* Fox Sports and CBS Sports jump all over this. For Fox's BCS coverage, they have 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"), the list goes on.
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** Changed because he might get sued over "illegal campaign contributions" to "The Stephen Colbert, Hail to the Cheese, Nacho Cheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign Coverage"
* [[Backyard Sports|And now, for the 110% Juice Player of the Game!]]
* Many major stakes races in American Thoroughbred Racing have name sponsors, such as [''shudder''] The Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands and The Breeder's Cup Classic Powered by Dodge.
* The Indy Racing League 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.
* The Hershey PA hockey team was originally called the "Hershey Bars"; but since advertising in team names was frowned upon, they were renamed and stayed the "Hershey Bears"
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]
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