By Daniel Rigney
Now that sports in the U.S. have gone almost entirely corporate, why not take the next logical step and create a Corporate Sports League (CSL)?
The practice of naming stadiums and arenas after corporate sponsors has been a hallowed financial tradition in modern pro sports for years. Here in Houston, for instance, the baseball park is named for an orange juice company (Minute Maid; former name: Enron Field), the football stadium for a private utility (Reliant), the basketball arena for a Japanese car (Toyota), and the new soccer stadium for a Spanish bank (BBVA).
If we can name coliseums after corporations, why not the teams themselves? Suppose metropolitan teams took their names from the largest Fortune 500 U.S. companies headquartered in or near them? Imagine what these corporate power rankings might look like if they were framed as athletic league standings.
Here are the Corporate Sports League's current standings, listed by each team’s metropolitan headquarters in order of revenue ($b), as ranked in the Fortune 500:
1. Little Rock Walls (the Wal-Mart team)
2. Dallas Exxons (not to be confused with the city’s soccer team,
the Dallas Texans)
3. Oakland Chevrons
4. Houston 66’s (Phillips 66, no kin to the old Houston Colt 45's)
5. Omaha Berkshires (sounds better than Omaha Hathaways)
6. San Jose Apples
7. Detroit Generals (or Motors) – that’s GM’s team
8. Bridgeport Generals (or Electrics) – that’s GE’s
9. San Antonio Valeros
10. Detroit Fords (cross-town rivals of the G-Motors)
11. Dallas AT&Ts -- the @’s for short
12. Washington Fannies (Fannie Mae. Make up your own joke here.)
13. Providence CVS’s (ranked above their arch-rivals, the Chicago
Walgreens)
14. San Francisco McKessons (described by Fortune as “the
country's largest drug distributor”)
15. San Jose Hewlitts (or Packards?) Is HP the Packard of the
industry?
16. New York Verizons
17. Minneapolis Uhgs (UnitedHealth Group)
18. New York Morgans (“Chasing a championship since 1799”)
19. Columbus Cardinals (Cardinal Health)
20. New York Machines (IBM)
21. Charlotte BankAmericards (Go Cards? Go Bankers?)
22. Seattle Wholesalers (Costco Wholesale -- Go Wholes?)
23. Cincinnati Krogers
24. St. Louis Express or St. Louis Prescriptions (Express Scripts)
25. San Francisco Wells (or Fargoes?) Will they go far?
26. New York Groupies (Citigroup)
27. Chicago Archers (Archer Daniels Midland)
28. Cincinnati Procters (or Gamblers?)
29. Newark Prudentials (Go Prudes?)
30. Chicago Boeings (formerly the Seattle Boeings)
Looking farther down the list, we find the New York Pepsies (PepsiCo, at 43) currently leading the Atlanta Cokes (57) in a storied rivalry.
Surprisingly, several tech all-stars failed to make this year’s top 30 -- the Seattle Microsofts (at 35), the Seattle Amazons (49), the San Francisco Googles (55) and their regional rivals, the Faces (Facebook), far down at 482. But just wait til next year.
From New York to San Francisco, the Fortune 500 are the giants of corporate America. This is the US elite league of the business game. But this is no ordinary sports league, and these are no ordinary teams. The stakes in this game are higher, because the ball they’re playing with is the planet Earth.
Call it earthball.
Danagram
Now that sports in the U.S. have gone almost entirely corporate, why not take the next logical step and create a Corporate Sports League (CSL)?
The practice of naming stadiums and arenas after corporate sponsors has been a hallowed financial tradition in modern pro sports for years. Here in Houston, for instance, the baseball park is named for an orange juice company (Minute Maid; former name: Enron Field), the football stadium for a private utility (Reliant), the basketball arena for a Japanese car (Toyota), and the new soccer stadium for a Spanish bank (BBVA).
If we can name coliseums after corporations, why not the teams themselves? Suppose metropolitan teams took their names from the largest Fortune 500 U.S. companies headquartered in or near them? Imagine what these corporate power rankings might look like if they were framed as athletic league standings.
Here are the Corporate Sports League's current standings, listed by each team’s metropolitan headquarters in order of revenue ($b), as ranked in the Fortune 500:
1. Little Rock Walls (the Wal-Mart team)
2. Dallas Exxons (not to be confused with the city’s soccer team,
the Dallas Texans)
3. Oakland Chevrons
4. Houston 66’s (Phillips 66, no kin to the old Houston Colt 45's)
5. Omaha Berkshires (sounds better than Omaha Hathaways)
6. San Jose Apples
7. Detroit Generals (or Motors) – that’s GM’s team
8. Bridgeport Generals (or Electrics) – that’s GE’s
9. San Antonio Valeros
10. Detroit Fords (cross-town rivals of the G-Motors)
11. Dallas AT&Ts -- the @’s for short
12. Washington Fannies (Fannie Mae. Make up your own joke here.)
13. Providence CVS’s (ranked above their arch-rivals, the Chicago
Walgreens)
14. San Francisco McKessons (described by Fortune as “the
country's largest drug distributor”)
15. San Jose Hewlitts (or Packards?) Is HP the Packard of the
industry?
16. New York Verizons
17. Minneapolis Uhgs (UnitedHealth Group)
18. New York Morgans (“Chasing a championship since 1799”)
19. Columbus Cardinals (Cardinal Health)
20. New York Machines (IBM)
21. Charlotte BankAmericards (Go Cards? Go Bankers?)
22. Seattle Wholesalers (Costco Wholesale -- Go Wholes?)
23. Cincinnati Krogers
24. St. Louis Express or St. Louis Prescriptions (Express Scripts)
25. San Francisco Wells (or Fargoes?) Will they go far?
26. New York Groupies (Citigroup)
27. Chicago Archers (Archer Daniels Midland)
28. Cincinnati Procters (or Gamblers?)
29. Newark Prudentials (Go Prudes?)
30. Chicago Boeings (formerly the Seattle Boeings)
Looking farther down the list, we find the New York Pepsies (PepsiCo, at 43) currently leading the Atlanta Cokes (57) in a storied rivalry.
Surprisingly, several tech all-stars failed to make this year’s top 30 -- the Seattle Microsofts (at 35), the Seattle Amazons (49), the San Francisco Googles (55) and their regional rivals, the Faces (Facebook), far down at 482. But just wait til next year.
From New York to San Francisco, the Fortune 500 are the giants of corporate America. This is the US elite league of the business game. But this is no ordinary sports league, and these are no ordinary teams. The stakes in this game are higher, because the ball they’re playing with is the planet Earth.
Call it earthball.
Danagram
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