Hi, all - As the executive director of public affairs for the Twins, I love the discussion, speculation and interest in our new ballpark. Just know that we do NOT have a naming rights deal in place with Land O' Lakes or any other company out there. Look for that by the end of 2008. In the meantime, have fun around the water cooler percolating your thoughts!

Also happy that the only tolerable corporate name is the one they seem to be leaning toward. (How doubly crushing would it be if they do something else?)

I could also live with Hormel, just to mock it. Pork Park. The Can. More Hell Field. The Hor house.

And then there's all the Hormel themed nicknames for players: Sloppy Joe (or Not-So-Sloppy-Joe).

Saag's Sausages has a lot of possibilities; those hitters' sausages were really sagging last night.

Valley Fresh Chunk Meats sounds ripe with possibility too; in fact I think the offense blew Valley Fresh Chunks last night.

Seriously, though, Land O Lakes Field would make me smile; since the phrase already exists outside a commercial context it would just make you think of our great outdoors, a great association for an outdoor stadium.

Philly Twins Fan, a reader of the WGOM, emailed me around noon with the following information, which I think makes the case for Land O' Lakes as a corporate naming rights sponsor all the more compelling. He's graciously allowed me to reprint his findings: Here's the bulk of his email:

I read your note on Land O' Lakes Park and found it interesting. I wondered about the relative size of Land O' Lakes compared to other naming rights buyers. So I copied a list of naming rights holders into a spreadsheet and, for all MLB clubs, plus other Twin City venues, found the most recent annual revenues for each of them and compared them to LOL revenues, which for the most recent year I could find was 7.274 Billion.

I have attached the spreadsheet for your info. The conclusion is that LOL is not small in the realm on naming rights holders. Smaller holders include Petco ($1.167B), McAfee ($1.308B), Comerica Park ($3.703B), US Cellular ($3.946B), Great American Ballpark ($4.503B), PNC Park ($6.166B), and Safeco Field( ($6.265). Of course, LOL would be third out of three in the Twin Cities, with Target and Xcel being larger in terms of annual revenue.

As an aside some holders gained their rights by acquiring the original holder, eg BankOne was bought by Chase, which later merged into JP Morgan. In these cases, the revenue figure is for the entire merged company. Also, some of the holders are subsidiaries or divisions of larger companies - eg Minute Maid is a division of Coca-Cola and Citizens Bank is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland.. In both cases, the revenue figure represents the larger parent company. Also, this is a quick and dirty research project, so all amount may not be most recent available.

Just thought you might be interested.

I wish there was some way of posting the spreadsheet he sent me. It has information on the status of naming rights for over 200 sports venues across the country. If anyone in the Nation is interested in a copy, email me at my SBG mail account and I'll forward you a copy.

Thanks so much to Philly Twins Fan for his fact-checking work and great contribution to the discussion!

Fukudome Field.

/Click for bigger

"The Spam Can"

Wrangler Field

Dinty Moore Park

It's too bad WLOL isn't around anymore.

I'm thinking that Land O' Lakes Field would be a nice shout-out to MN's hardworking farmers.

(Repository tells me biggest MN companies)

General Mills, Hormel, and Holiday would also be acceptable.
Polaris and Valspar might be okay.
(Valspar just because of the building by the Dome.)

Pohlad Companies would be good, too...
Did you know they own B96 (radio station?)