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Online casino antes up $35,099 to rename FleetCenter
By Sasha Talcott, Globe Staff | February 16, 2005
Online casino Golden Palace hit the international media jackpot last year when it agreed to pay $28,000 for a grilled cheese sandwich with an uncanny likeness to the Virgin Mary. Today in Boston, it will put its name on what it hopes will be an equally visible prize: the FleetCenter.
The online casino — licensed in Canada, run from Antigua, with a chief executive based in the United Kingdom — bid $35,099 to win an eBay auction to rename the center for a single day. It will change the name on the FleetCenter’s website to the GoldenPalace.comCenter, and its name will grace the building’s Jumbotron and play on its automated phone system.
The casino has a long track record of using its eBay bids to gain fame. It paid $4,050 to put its Web address on a pregnant woman’s belly, $156 for a giant piece of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal (”Truly the king of flakes,” its website gushed), and $2,550 for a weeping Jesus rock, which it claims shows Christ with his head bowed in prayer. It even paid about $800 to put its name on a woman’s cleavage, and it praised the buy on its website as a ”massive media opportunity.”
Golden Palace said yesterday it is equally eager to put its name on the FleetCenter, home of the Boston Celtics and Bruins. It will receive four tickets to the Celtics game against the Memphis Grizzlies.
”We’re very excited about the opportunity,” said Drew Black, the company’s marketing director. ”We’re excited that we get the recognition as part of Celtics-Grizzlies game . . . and that we’ll get some added mentions on the Jumbotron.”
The FleetCenter’s chief executive, Richard Krezwick, said yesterday he welcomes the casino’s name on the arena. The arena reserved the right to veto name choices of the bidders, but Krezwick said he did not view that as necessary in this case.
”We exist for everyone,” he said. ”We’re not going to prejudice this process by censoring names.”
FleetCenter executives also said they would put several more days for naming rights out to bid on eBay this week.
But the FleetCenter’s decision to name the arena after a gambling website brought fierce criticism from some elected officials and gambling opponents.
”Let’s let a drug cartel put their name on it. Maybe they could have gotten more money,” said Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling in Rockford, Ill.
The US Department of Justice views online gambling as illegal, and it sent a letter last year to media organizations warning them not to accept advertising from the gambling websites. A department spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the FleetCenter case.
State Senator Susan C. Tucker, Democrat of Andover, said the gambling industry’s false promises and extra cost to the taxpayers ”send a bad message” with the casino’s name on the FleetCenter.
Golden Palace’s marketing director, Black, said Bostonians should not be offended by the FleetCenter renaming because the new name does not include the word ”casino.” He also said the company should not stop its marketing efforts, even if it upsets people.
”You can say anything that’s out there may upset people, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to stop promoting yourself,” he said.
The FleetCenter is changing names after Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., acquired Fleet for $48 billion last year. Bank of America decided to pay a fee, likely about $3 million, to get out of the naming-rights contract, rather than sign off on a new deal to call the building the Bank of America Center.
As they look for a new corporate sponsor, FleetCenter executives decided to put single-day naming rights out to bid on eBay. Proceeds go to charity.
The winners of other single-day naming rights bids paid between $2,500 and $4,000. A Sudbury salon plans to call it the InvidiaSalon.comCenter on Saturday, while a West Dennis business plans to call it the CranberryRealEstateCenter on Monday.
In addition to its eclectic eBay bids, Golden Palace has bid for attention with even more risque marketing tactics. During the 2004 Super Bowl, it sent a streaker onto the field with the casino’s Web address tattooed on his back, below the words ”Super Bowel.” It also has sent streakers to the British Open and the Olympics in Athens. At the Olympics, the Golden Palace streaker climbed the diving board dressed in a tutu and clown shoes before the men’s synchronized springboard finals and belly-flopped into the water.
A FleetCenter spokesman, Jim Delaney, said he expects Golden Palace executives to remain clothed during the Celtics game.
”We have the utmost confidence that this will be a really strong partnership for the day,” he said.
Sasha Talcott can be reached at [email protected].
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
