In his latest column, Matthews writes:
The Mets should be embarrassed to emblazon their new park with the name of an outfit whose players performed even worse than the team did last year. They should be ashamed of using your money to advertise their (worthless) services. If they had any ethics, they would cancel the deal now and start looking for a sponsor that can actually pay its own bills.Right. Because it's the Mets fault Citigroup is laying off 52,000 and just got a check from the US gov't.
But they don't, and they won't.
The Mets should just say, "You know what, take your $400 million, I'm sure with this economy, companies will be lining up around the corner!"
You're crazy, Matthews. If a team turned down $400 million right now, they'd be insane. This isn't the Mets fault, and don't try to pin it on them. Citigroup screwed up, and was lucky enough to get our money to save their butts. As I said yesterday, think of it as one giant commercial. They can do whatever they want with their commercials, why should we be able to say what they do with their naming rights.
Downright silly.