Vancouver B.C. Place to keep its name as government turns down $35 million

What do you do when you're offered about $35 million for something as inconsequential as the name of a stadium? If you're the B.C. government, you say: "No, thank you."

Taxpayers, media and opposition parties in British Columbia are flabbergasted that the governing Liberals have turned down a $1.75 million per year offer by Telus to put its moniker on Vancouver's B.C. Place.

Renovations of the stadium, home of the B.C. Lions and the Vancouver Whitecaps, cost taxpayers $536 million last year. The plan had always been to recoup some of those monies by selling the naming rights to the 30-year-old stadium. And, according to reports, a deal with Telus was imminent.

B.C. Pavilion Corporation (PavCo), the agency that operates the stadium on behalf of the government, had already paid out $60,510 for Telus marquee signage footing and reinforced steel. It also paid $30,277 to remove the "B.C. Place" sign last August. Telus, B.C.'s largest private employer, had already built a "Telus Park" sign at an estimated cost of up to $2 million dollars.

But in an apparent about face, B.C. Premier Christy Clark and her cabinet now say they want to preserve the name B.C. Place.

"Let me get this straight: this government is so broke that teachers are on strike, disabled people are kicked out of group homes and hospital patients are triaged in a Tim Hortons doughnut shop," Vancouver Province columnist Michael Smyth wrote in his column Friday.

"Yet this same penniless government is willing to kiss off $35 million because citizens can't bear to part with the "iconic" name B.C. Place?"

Tom Mayenknecht, host of The Sport Market on Team 1040 radio, told the Globe and Mail that the government's decision doesn't make any sense from a business point of view either.

"When you look at naming-rights deals throughout North America, it actually competes with the best of them," he said.

"Cabinet has taken nine, 10, 11 months … to deal with this issue and obviously the politics of it have trumped the commercial merit of the deal."