Naming rights: is everything for sale?

• Position: Advertising - Brief article

From Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, to the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Americans are used to music and sports arenas with corporate names. But now cash-strapped municipalities are getting in on the action, selling the naming fights of train stations, schools--and even towns themselves. A high school in Newburyport, Massachusetts, says the name of its auditorium can be bought for $100,000 and its English classrooms for $5,000 apiece. Philadelphia recently agreed to change the name of Pattison Avenue subway station (Pattison was a...