Citizen D
                             

01/23/03   Are You Watching American Airlines?

With things looking glum and bankruptcy a real possibility for AA, wonder what priority a Bankruptcy Judge would give to Hicks/Perot naming rights deal or even the Miami naming rights deal.  Wonder how cooperative the employees will be about benefits and salary cuts when AA is shelling out $7.6 Million annually for plastering their name on two sports palaces.

Yes, $7.6 Million is a drop in the bucket compared to the $500 Million AA lost last quarter, but tell that to a flight attendant who is looking at a salary cut or a pilot who has been with AA for several years and is close to retirement.

I called a super smart friend about the AA naming rights and their potential bankruptcy and was told many, many companies that bought naming rights have gone bankrupt and facility names have been changed frequently.  

ENRON comes to mind.

We agreed it wasn't surprising that those big spending companies would wind up in financial trouble.  Executives deciding to spend millions to subsidize sports team owners are probably making other foolhardy decisions in other areas of the company's activities, other displays of arrogance and extravagance. 

A lot of public officials forget they are dealing with the public's money.  Many people who run big companies also forget (if they ever cared) they are spending other people's money and playing with their employees' lives and welfare.  Then there are the Robber Barons like Ross Perot, Jr. and Tom Hicks who think it's all their money and everyone not in their gene pool is on this earth to serve and toil for them.

Last week, Tom Hicks was on one of the TV stations showing off his latest taxpayer rip off up in Frisco.  Hicks said something like " if that mayor in a city South of here (Frisco) were more business friendly" . . . .   I guess he meant Dallas, too could have a baseball stadium for a farm team if Mayor Miller were more sports focused and less protective of taxpayer money.  I guess he meant Dallas should neglect its infrastructure further and go after the Cowboys and build another Millionaire a place to operate his business.

This Mayor has the business community behind her because she has convinced them that tending to the basic needs of this will be good for business.  

There is no doubt that Hicks and Perot will back Mayor PreTend Poss.  She has been carrying their water for 8 years, and they certainly do not want that gravy train to end.  When do these Robber Barons have enough?  That's the real question to me.  

They have enormous homes -- palatial estates.  That would be fine if they acquired their wealth through good business deals and investments, but the Perot family and Tom Hicks have leveraged local governments for years to get public money to pay for their business deals.  Those palatial estates have really been acquired by paying off the likes of That Former Mayor Ron Kirk and former City MisManager John Ware.  It's just not right.

That brings us back to American Airlines current financial difficulties.  There was never any justification from a public relations standpoint of having the AA brand slapped on the Hicks/Perot arena.  I guarantee you not one person left that arena or drove by it who said "Hey, I am going to go fly American Airlines because I just saw their logo on an arena."  

Dr. Pepper having its brand all over a farm team baseball stadium in Frisco is another matter.  People consume soft drinks at sports events, particularly baseball games which are usually played in warm weather.   Depending on how much they paid and how much it costs them annually, it might be a good advertising vehicle for a soft drink company to have their logo all over a sports stadium.  There's always the factor that it is a limited audience and probably a repeat audience at any sports stadium.  Television or radio or even print advertising reaches across the spectrum of potential consumers, but certainly some people attending a sports event will be buying a Dr. Pepper if it is available (which it frequently is not at various sports facilities).

The connection between an airline and a sports facility is too giant a reach to justify calling it advertisement.  Having AA shell out $195 Million to have its name on the Hicks/Perot arena was not advertisement, it was a corporate subsidy of Tom Hicks and the Perot family.  Dallas taxpayers were already subsidizing them with the arena sales tax on car rentals (over 75% of cars rented in the city limits are to Dallas residents).  Then there's the measly rent the Mavericks and Stars pay annually to use the arena, when they keep all revenue from ticket and parking sales, plus food and beverage sales.

My closing questions --  If American Airlines does file for bankruptcy,

	Will the Bankruptcy Judge put AA employees before public relations?
	Will the Bankruptcy Judge release AA from its obligations for naming rights to the Dallas and Miami arenas?
	Can our local arena consortium (Perot, Hicks, Cuban, et al) absorb an annual loss of $6.5 Million until they can find a new egomaniac running some other big conglomerate into the ground?
	What happens if there are no suckers out there waiting to waste their corporate profits on arena naming rights?

This must be why Tommy has the Stars on the market.