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Cardinals, Anheuser-Busch agree on 20-year deal
By Matthew Leach / MLB.com
The seats will still be red.
And the facility will still be named Busch Stadium.
The team made the announcement of naming rights for its new stadium, set to open at the beginning of the 2006 season, at a Wednesday afternoon news conference outside the current Busch Stadium.
The naming-rights deal with Anheuser-Busch, one of the St. Louis area's most prominent corporations, is for 20 years, or through the 2025 season. The Cardinals declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal, but it is expected to help offset some of the approximately $400 million cost of building the new ballpark.
With construction workers for the new park in attendance, and the construction site in view just over their shoulders, team and Anheuser-Busch officials revealed what many fans in St. Louis had been hoping.
"It just wouldn't be Cardinals baseball without Busch Stadium," said the team's principal owner, William O. DeWitt Jr.
"From the beginning of this process," said Cardinals president Mark Lamping, "the name that we certainly hoped to be able to deliver to our fans was Busch Stadium. During Anheuser-Busch's consideration of this opportunity, we did talk to a number of companies both local and outside St. Louis, but none of them in the detail that we did with Anheuser-Busch."
The Cardinals have played at the current Busch Stadium since it opened in 1966. From 1953-1966, the ballpark previously known as Sportsman's Park was called Busch Stadium, after the brewery purchased the ballclub and the stadium.
DeWitt called Anheuser-Busch a "great and admired company and corporate citizen," and he and Lamping both emphasized that the team had hoped to keep the Busch Stadium name. He presented Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of global media and sports marketing, with a print from the team featuring images of all three stadiums to carry the name.
The duration and magnitude of the relationship between the team and Anheuser-Busch is highlighted by this fact: The Cardinals had five Hall of Famers in attendance at the news conference, and every one of them played in at least one iteration of Busch Stadium.
"It's been such a part of all of our lives here in St. Louis for so long that it's only right," said Ozzie Smith, who was joined by fellow Cooperstown enshrinees Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst. "I told Tony Ponturo that to even talk about putting some other name on this stadium would be sacrilegious."
Other Cardinals luminaries present included general manager Walt Jocketty, manager Tony La Russa, All-Stars Scott Rolen and Albert Pujols and former manager Whitey Herzog.
"I just can't see this stadium being called anything else but Busch Stadium," said Herzog, who skippered St. Louis to its last world championship, in 1982. "I don't go back to Stan the Man and Red and everybody, but I did play in Sportsman's Park and I really was hoping this was what the name would be."
In addition to announcing the name, the club revealed how the facades of the new park will look. Over each of the four main entrances will hang a large sign with "BUSCH STADIUM" in block letters and "HOME FIELD OF THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS" in smaller letters underneath.
"Busch Stadium" signs will appear throughout the park, as of course will prominent advertising for Anheuser-Busch's two main brands, Budweiser and Bud Light. The corporation will continue to hold exclusive alcohol beverage sponsorship rights on Cardinals television and radio broadcasts, as well as rights to use the team's logo, to go along with its presence within the stadium.
"We could not be more proud of this relationship or more excited about the prospects for the future," said Ponturo.
Ponturo said that no serious consideration was ever given to a different name to the park, once discussions became serious. A-B's best-known brands are Budweiser and Bud Light, but the facility was never close to being named after one of those beverages.
"We looked at the tradition and the legacy. When you have something for 50 years that's called Busch Stadium, we felt that it wouldn't be appropriate to do anything other than that."
With a typically hot St. Louis summer sun beating down, A-B made a special gesture to the construction workers who took a brief break to attend the announcement. Ponturo announced that all the workers in attendance would receive a free six-pack of Budweiser, bottled on Wednesday.
Just underscoring, yet again, that the Cardinals and Busch continue to have a beautiful relationship.
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