Instead of funding our parks, the government will now auction off naming rights to the highest corporate bidders.
By Jill Richardson / OtherWords
Imagine painstakingly making up your way up the cables of Yosemite National Park’s famous Half Dome peak — only to see swooshes and slogans encouraging you to “Just Do It.”
“Welcome to Half Dome,” a gleaming banner greets you, “sponsored by Nike.”
Unfortunately, it’s a possibility. As the coverage swells over Barack and Michelle Obama’s recent visit to Yosemite and Carlsbad Caverns, Americans are learning that national parks will now start selling naming rights.
The parks are facing a hefty budget shortfall, so they’re turning to corporations — who are apparently more generous with cash than the current Congress.
Truly, this is a bummer.
We go to national parks to escape the commercialism of modern life. Nothing is more spectacular than enjoying the beauty of a waterfall or the sunset over the mountains, or the magnificence of wild grizzly bears, wolves, and bison that one rarely sees outside of a national park.
What’s more, we don’t have to buy this majesty because we, the American people, already own it. There’s no need to consider what to buy or how much it costs when enjoying the splendor of a national park. For one thing, it’s worth more than money, and for another, it’s already yours.
But instead of properly funding our parks, the government will now auction off naming rights to the highest corporate bidders, thus cheapening the experience of the millions of Americans who visit the parks each year.
So Coca-Cola, which already wraps itself in the flag to peddle diabetes-inducing sodas, can now place its branding on the most iconic American destinations.
For now, there are limits to which assets businesses can name, and where they can use their slogans. But the next time there’s a shortfall, what else can we expect?
Maybe Angel’s Landing in Zion, brought to you by Victoria’s Secret Dream Angels bras? Or how about Apple, which named its latest operating system for the mountain El Capitan in Yosemite, buying naming rights for the actual El Capitan?
What about re-naming Utah’s Arches National Park for Dr. Scholl’s Arch Support shoe inserts? Or worse, for the Golden Arches of McDonald’s?
The only bright spot I can think of is that Pepsi changed the name of its lemon-lime soda to Mist Twist, so it’s unlikely that the soda Sierra Mist will be the sponsor of actual Sierra mist. Although I suppose that wouldn’t stop them from sponsoring Yosemite’s Mist Trail.
This is a bigger issue than just seeing a corporate logo or two on your next visit to a national park. This is about how we, as a people, agree to pay for running our nation.
You’ve heard the phrase “you get what you pay for.” Well, we are.
After more than three decades of anti-tax rhetoric and a lot of blustering by members of Congress about stopping the old “tax and spend” ways, they’re cutting back on what makes us American.
Think about how you run your budget. You don’t just buy the cheapest car or the cheapest food, or get the cheapest haircut. You don’t decide to go without a medical procedure or avoid buying clothes just because they cost money.
You weigh costs against value. You buy what you need. Sometimes it makes sense to spend a little more for better quality. And you certainly wouldn’t avoid expenses related to your core values just to save a buck.
So should we as a nation. We should invest in our national parks, and we should invest in other areas too.
Let’s treat our national parks like the treasures that they are — not as albatrosses to cut costs on by selling naming rights to the highest bidder.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.
Content licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative 3.0 License.
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Would the view of half dome look any different if there’s a sponsor sign at the viewpoint? Not to me.
It seems Ms. Richardson is appalled by the mere idea of corporate sponsorship. But naming a mountain or waterfall doesn’t change the place itself, and anyway don’t they all have names already?
I would be appalled to see this happen; however it has been driven by corporate greed and the GOP who want to keep lowering taxes. Our taxes pay for wonderful things like our parks, roads, public safety, libraries, hospitals, etc.etc. When will America wake up and realize taxes need to raised to properly maintain our services? Corporate loopholes must be taken away too! That might even be enough to fund the things we want without hurting our eroding middle class with higher taxes.
Two words of warning: Delaware North…
And, to the soul-dead “GOP”: There’s good reason Teddy Roosevelt is enshrined on Mount Rushmore, and YOU’RE NOT. EVER…
*BIG smile* you got that right, Mr. bear!
The whole idea of naming any assets after corporations cheapens the asset whether it’s in a national park or just the name of a football stadium. It promotes the idea that government should step aside and let corporations rule. That’s what’s wrong with this country. They put a price tag on everything.
Corps, and Republicans, know the price tag of everything – and the value of nothing…
How about naming natural features after explorers and conquerors? Or catholic saints? It’s just a name and has no bearing on the intrinsic nature of the thing.
IOW, a rose by any other name…
That’s how I see it, anyway.
Now, if they’d try to hang a banner between any of the Arches… that’s a different kettle of monkeys. But truly, I don’t think so.
Names DO matter – just ask them at Yosemite, where Delaware North stole several of the park’s long-historic place names because they lost the bid for the new concessionaire contract.
Naked corporate GREED.
Wasn’t kidding, about that warning…
I completely agree (see screed below), but Xanterra, Aramark, and Forever Resorts, the other 3 big concessionaires, are no better. And Yosemite’s not in hawk for future concession revenue like Grand Canyon: their case went to arbitration today so Aramark (the new concessionaire) will have to pay DN between $3.5M and $51M for the “intellectual property” of the historic facility names, and may or may not have to buy the mailing lists.
Mr. Bear: while I agree that DN’s theft of trademarks was egregious and despicable, I did mean things like mountains, waterfalls, lakes, etc. That’s what Parks are about and what the article was about, not man-made things like hotels.
I’ve got mixed thoughts on this.
The chronic underfunding of our national parks and other public resources is appalling. I’m against privatizing parks or raising fees to restrict visitation to the highest bidder. Parks are our shared natural and cultural birthright, for the unimpaired enjoyment of this and future generations. They’re not commercial amusement facilities maximizing revenue. I’m in favor of protecting our large natural parks, but also of expanding our cultural parks to preserve more of our cultural sites of the past 70-100 years. Somehow I don’t see Gallo Wine funding Cesar Chavez National Monument, or any corporation funding Manzanar National Historic Site, even though those are relatively cheap parks to operate. Therefore, government funding of national parks is one priority for me, and something I’m happy to pay taxes for as a benefit to future generations, in addition to entrance fees for my own enjoyment.
But at the same time, our National Parks have _never_ been free of commercialization, nor their facilities or operations adequately funded. Thinking otherwise is “make America great AGAIN” historical amnesia. The 1918 Organic Act establishing the NPS allowed up to $19,500 per year. [One repeating motif in an early cut of Ken Burns & Dayton Duncan’s NPS series was a line that Congress designated * National Park or Monument, “but appropriated no funding for its operation”. I wish I knew the story of that being edited out in the final cut!] Perhaps national parks were adequately funded in the 1960s Great Society “Mission 66” 50th anniversary, and CCC did wonderful work in parks in the 1930s, but those were the exceptions.
If anything, parks are less commercialized now than 90 years ago. The equivalents to the attractions in Gatlinburg, West Yellowstone, Estes Park, & other gateway towns were inside the parks back then: a zoo/menagerie & ice rink in Yosemite Valley.
To give just one example of long-lasting big business commercialization, the historic big park lodges were all built by railroads as loss-leaders, so people would buy train tickets to get there. NPS wanted visitation, so allowed the private construction on park lands and charged only a small percentage of the net. [Yes it was named “El Tovar” and not “Harvey House”, but that was marketing by ATSF to make it a special destination.] That’s why concessionaires own the facilities at Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, etc.
Then in the 1990s, Congress mandated open competition among park concessionaires instead of sole-source contracts. Great, except they gave no funding to NPS to buy back the facilities owned by the incumbent concessionaires. NPS couldn’t get any other concessionaires (there are really only 4 of them) to bid on 10-15 years of Grand Canyon operations if they had to pay the former concessionaire $300M up front for the facilities. Grand Canyon did what it had to do to obey the law: it borrowed from other parks to buy the assets down to $100M. But, that means the park will use _all_ of the future revenue on the current concession contract to pay back the loans, and when the contract comes up for bids again, appreciation will put them right back dealing with hundreds of millions in facilities buy-out for the next bidding competition. So for the next 15 years the park will essentially net nothing from the lodge, store, etc. park concessions on the south rim. [Similar to projected increased future tax revenues never paying off the $600M for the convention center expansion or $? for a football stadium during the usable lifespan of the facilities.]
On a smaller but local scale, several car commercials are shot at Cabrillo N.M. each year, plus other commercial & movie shoots. By law & policy, the shoots take place after closing to not impact visitors, but the park is not allowed to charge more than costs and thus gains nothing. Users have to pay a fee to cover the permit review costs, and pay for a few hours of overtime for 2 or 3 employees to monitor the shoot. That’s it.
So, while we aren’t going to eliminate corporate use of our national parks in the current climate (“corporations are people my friend”), I think deals where there’s concrete (financial) benefit to the parks (and no impairment of visitor enjoyment) would be a significant improvement. I’m personally OK if Bud wants to put the Statue of Liberty and Gateway Arch on their cans, and sponsor large concerts at Governor’s Island or Gateway Arch (but not in Yosemite, Zion, etc.), but I think they should pay more than $1M for the rights, and the funds need to be supplements to appropriations, not replacements.
Thoughtful citizens can and do disagree with me. That’s a good thing: the parks belong to all of us.