Thoughts on Staples Center 'Lifetime' Sponsorship

News of the week is that Staples has signed a “lifetime” extension to be the title sponsor of the Staples Center.

Let’s leave aside the semantic issue of whose lifetime precisely – that of the Center which will inevitably be knocked down and replaced by some future uber-center in a few years, or that of Staples until it gets taken over or becomes Office Staples in a merger.

Either way we’re a little puzzled by this deal. Here’s why:

If Staples stopped being the sponsor tomorrow, pretty much everyone would still call it the Staples Center for the next five years anyway, no matter who the new sponsor was.
All of our research that we’ve done for naming rights sponsors tells us they really aren’t sponsorships at all, but just big billboards. A true sponsorship forms a connection w...