Every Fool's Guide to the Universe

Have you heard about the offer recently made to the small town of Sharer, Kentucky? An online gambling site called PokerShare.com offered the town $100,000 if it would change its name ever so slightly to match the name of the site.

This proposal is the latest in a long line of corporate naming schemes. It started, I suppose, with radio. Shows even then had names like the Texaco Star Theater. With the advent of television, naming became even more common. TV shows in the 1950s often had a single very visible sponsor.

More recently, sporting events and venues have taken on corporate monikers. We have the Nokia Sugar Bowl, Heinz Field, and the Nextel Cup (now that cigarette-maker Winston is a pariah). Here in Columbus, Ohio, we even have Value City Arena (shudder).

Suddenly, corporate naming is everywhere. Companies sponsor rock concerts and theater productions. Naturally, they plaster their brand all over everything even vaguely related to these events.

As it turns out, the city leaders in Sharer decided they didn't really want to live in a dot-com, especially when poker was involved. As Darren Shuster, the poker-meister, points out, there will be other towns and some of them will undoubtedly seek to sell their civic souls to get rich quick.

I propose a compromise that should make everyone happy. To resolve this issue and restore public trust in our communities, I am willing to offer my services. In exchange for the sum of $100,000, I will rename this blog to pretty nearly anything. It could be, for example, the I Love Poker blog. I don't, but who cares? I'll even advertise computer products if that's who's paying the freight.

I feel like a prostitute, but I just keep telling myself that my selfless sacrifice is for the sake of humanity. Without my intervention, who knows how many other small towns could be scandalized? With a little luck, we'll never know...
NamingHumorPoker

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