TD Banknorth What?

With the TD Banknorth Garden, corporate sponsorship has taken a turn for the worse.

In an age when the phenomenon of corporate sponsorship is increasingly common, what is the price of cultural authenticity? It seems that Delaware-based TD Banknorth Incorporated has come up with a firm answer to that question: $7.5 million dollars a year.

The “TD Banknorth Garden” has officially eaten the FleetCenter. Bad timing. The renaming of the FleetCenter occurs at a time when the arena had just gained collective recognition as a Boston landmark; people were finally as accustomed to talking about the FleetCenter as they had been talking about the Boston Garden. Yet now Fleet’s name has been usurped in an awkward attempt to inspire brand loyalty for a new, less-cool sounding company.

The use of the word “garden” as a link to the arena’s long-lost ancestor is half-hearted and feeble. “Garden” doesn’t exactly conjure up images of gracefully flowing industrial lines, unadorned steel exteriors, and distinctly 90s-era architecture. But then again, the words “TD Banknorth” don’t really conjure up anything at all. At least “FleetCenter” sounded streamlined and quick. TD Banknorth draws a blank for pretty much everyone, except for those who know that “TD” stands for Toronto Dominion. They might think of Toronto, which happens to be Canadians’ least favorite city. Nice. In America’s ongoing corporate popularity contest, the TD Banknorth Garden is an exercise in futility.

To be sure, the decision to plop “garden” down after the “flowing” syllables of “TD Banknorth” was neither hasty nor lighthearted. It was stupid. If TD Banknorth was looking to inspire brand loyalty, it should have re-renamed the arena Boston Garden and then, in the tradition of most halftime shows these days, added a little, semi-noticeable blurb underneath saying “Presented by TD Banknorth.” Exactly why the company thought elongating an arena name to epic lengths would endear goodwill among Boston’s famously ornery inhabitants is unclear, but given TD Banknorth’s size and distinction we can rest assured it was the wrong decision.

As with most things, the renaming of the FleetCenter, and the larger issue of corporate sponsorship have clear implications for Harvard. With a 24-hour library and possibly a college pub on tap for construction, the opportunities are limitless. After all, what company wouldn’t want to be associated with the fond memories of America’s future lawyers, doctors, politicians, and advertisers?

The Staff imagines a day when all Harvard students can wake up and sign on to CSFB Webmail, have a few Purdue broccoli chickens, head to Sever Hall (presented by Visa) for a lecture with The Halliburton Professor of Literature, crash the MTV pub in Loker Commons, and then end the day at an Undergraduate Council meeting where Bylaw 62.35, sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, is invoked. Is this day that far off at our current pace?

The TD Banknorth Garden likely doesn’t represent the wave crest of corporate sponsorship. Reality bites, but right now it’s better to ride the wave out—wait ’til sponsorship really becomes unfashionable before beginning to fight against it. Accordingly, we are left wondering how much we could get for naming rights to the editorial office.