Class Blog: Honda Center

Signage and advertising within a sports arena can be very effective. Sometimes these advertisements at sporting events could almost be considered a sort of subliminal messaging because they actually do go unnoticed at times. Just think about in a basketball arena how many different sponsors they have on the scoreboard! Baseball and hockey both advertise heavily on their scoreboards as well but they can even put them into the walls around the field and rink. The NHL has taken it to a whole new level and even put advertisements under the ice. I don't know exaclty how effective some of these are but they definitely create a recognizable logo and brand for the companies who place them. Some of these logos become part of the game and the arena themselves so you can hardly think about watching the game without tying that logo with it. I know that's how I feel when attending a Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Indians games. The tallest building in downtown Cleveland is this huge Key Bank building. So naturally, Progressive Field (Indians) and Quicken Loans Arena (Cavs) have tons of things sponsored by Key Bank. Progressive Field always has a huge Key Bank logo on the giant scoreboard in left field. At many home playoff games the Cavaliers offer every fan a free shirt and they are almost always sponsored by Key Bank. It is almost like Key Bank comes hand in hand with these downtown Cleveland Sports. I don't think all this adertising has taken away from the games being played yet but I think it could if they start doing sponsored animations and visual effects on televised games. For example, if the simulated first down line in football started to get sponsored by a company or something, I think that could get very distracting to viewers.