Coliseum Corporate Sponsorship Would Be a Loss for USC Trojans

C&G Shades On is a special weekly column from Sara Kakuris, bringing a die-hard USC football fan’s voice and perspective to Reign of Troy.

Duracell Memorial Coliseum of Los Angeles. Los Angeles Gauntlet Coliseum sponsored by Lexus. The Royal Purple Lubricant Stadium.

No.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is a landmark. And an extraordinary piece of accomplishment, legend and history.

A corporate brand does not belong anywhere near the name of this storied architecture.

Commissioned as a memorial to the veterans of World War I, the Coliseum opened in 1923 as the largest stadium in Los Angeles.

Corporate sponsorship is part of the world in which we live, but we will be doing a disservice to that world if we allow history to be stomped upon in the name of the almighty dollar.

Just before the 1932 Olympics, the torch was added to the architecture and it was temporarily known as “Olympic Stadium”.

On July 27, 1984, the Coliseum was declared a National Historical Landmark. The next day, it became the first venue ever to host the Olympic games twice.

The Coliseum has been the home of, among others, the Chargers, the Raiders, the Rams, the Dodgers and, yes, the Bruins.

I understand that corporate sponsorship is part of the world in which we live, but I think we will be doing a disservice to that world if we allow history to be stomped upon in the name of the almighty dollar.

USC has plenty of those dollars. While I am not their official accountant, I’d be willing to bet they could pay the $100 million dollars promised in renovations over the next 49 years by close of business today.

I don’t go to a football game to sit in lounge chairs and have someone hand me cloth towels in the bathroom. You will never catch me dead in one of those Audi suites where you can’t even see the game.

I am there to watch my team, a team steeped in tradition, in a stadium steeped in historical greatness.

May 18, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; General view of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum peristyle entrance and Olympic torch and cauldron. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

USC is being greedy.

With all of the new stadium construction proposals shooting back and forth, it seems all the more unlikely that the Coliseum will ever be the permanent home of an NFL team.

It’s almost a given, at this point, that it will be the temporary home, though it’s contracted to be only one team.

The Chargers, Raiders and Rams have a heck of a lot more to worry about than whether the toilet seats are heated. They’ll be lucky to sell a majority of their tickets for a long while regardless of whether truffle burgers are sold in the stands.

I know my view of all of this is greatly filtered through love of tradition glasses. My pride stems so much from the Trojans’ amazing legacy and this stadium is a deep rooted part of that legacy.

What’s in a name?

A lot when it comes to selling out your historical significance for the promise of deeply filled pockets.

However, I could be convinced if a certain “family planning” company came on board and we got to spend every Saturday at the Trojan Memorial Coliseum…

I welcome hearing your thoughts and any future ideas you’d like to see in a column. Feel free to follow me on Twitter at @SCTrojanSara and tweet me any time.

See you next week and Fight On!

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