Today, Minister of Tourism, Arts & Culture Lisa Beare announced an RFP for corporate naming rights for BC Place, the 54,500-seat stadium right next to the smaller, 12-years-newer, Rogers Arena.
Boasting the largest retractable roof in the world, BC Place is one of the many legacies of Expo ’86, and is operated by B.C. Pavilion Corporation, the Crown corporation responsible for the BC Pavilion, in that seminal year of, well, showcasing BC.
In addition to operating BC Place Stadium and the Vancouver Convention Centre, PavCo has also administered the ground lease and development of the land west of the stadium (now known as Parq Vancouver, a Paragon Gaming hotel-casino-spa-fitness concept).
But for the past decade, ever since Roofgate — sorry, Deflategate was taken — and the 2014 completion of the roof reno, BC Place has largely flown under the radar as a major, name-brand venue for a generation of youth looking for something to do.
You go to BC Place for the Whitecaps or Lions, and you go for the occasional auto or boat show. Or…some people do.
But other facilities get Childish Gambino or Arctic Monkeys, and so other facilities pull in the younger generation.* Could that change with the influx of cash through a naming deal?
Over to you. They’re not asking, but we are:
What name and corporate affiliation would you like to see for BC Place?
*If you don’t know who those artists are, that’s also kind of the point…
Huawei House.
The masts mimic the Budweiser crown logo.
So the obvious one is Bud Place (or BC Bud Place).