Golden Gate Bridge Corporate Sponsor - Is the Roosevelt Island Aerial Tramway Next?
An article in yesterday's NY Times describes a plan to alleviate a portion of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge's projected $80 million operating deficit in the next 5 years with funds generated from advertising sponsorships from corporate sponsors.
According to the article:
a committee of the board that runs the financially strapped Golden Gate Bridge did pass along a plan for a so-called corporate partnership for the structure, sending a proposal to a vote in front of the full board next month. Even as it did so, however, activists here were already preparing for the possibility that the Golden Gate — the engineering wonder, international tourist attraction and perpetual suicide magnet — might soon be brought to you by Coca-Cola, for example.Some people think it is a bad idea:
a board member who opposes the plan, said the idea of corporate sponsorship was equivalent to slapping an advertisement on the side of the White House. “I don’t think you take your iconic properties and turn them into advertising opportunities,” ... “There are places in the world that should be kept clean.Others like it:
But much of the board committee seemed to support the plan. The full board — 19 members from six Bay Area counties — will take up the issue on Sept. 28.How does this apply to Roosevelt Island? Given the costs associated with the operation and continued maintenance of the Roosevelt Island Tram the temptation must be great to find alternative additional revenue sources. Are corporate sponsorships a possibility for the Tram and if so is that a good idea or not? If it is good enough for the Golden Gate Bridge, is it good enough for the Tram, or even the Brooklyn Bridge as well as other iconic, decaying, New York City infrastructure?
... viewed the sponsorship plan as a chance to upgrade the experience for visitors to the bridge, experience, now limited to a gift shop, a garden and a viewing platform.
“Right now, we don’t really get the story of the bridge,” ...“This is an opportunity to get other people to help us tell that story."
5 comments :
If corporate sponsorship means slapping ads on the outsides of the tram car then no way! In the end the tram would look like one of those all ads even across the windows MTA buses.
Putting ads inside around the ceiling might be an idea that would be okay. Leasing space at both stations to other businesses like newspaper stands or other things would be okay, too.
Sounds cool - what would the money be used for though? Would it be used to improve bus service, offset increases, etc., or simply go into theblack hole of someone's pocket? Would the cabins look like NASCAR cars?
Anonymous12:44
To have any significant value at all to a potential corporate sponsor there would have to be more than interior cabin ads or leasing space at the stations.
The outside of the cabin would have to have some form of corporate identification though it might not have to be entirely shrink wrapped like the buses mentioned.However,I think that in order for the sponsorship to have value the corporate identification would have to be visible from some diatance away, much like the Pepsi sign in LIC.
The use of any money generated by sponsorship brought up by JMBO is also an interesting issue. The problem may arise that if significant sums can be raised through sponsorships as envisioned by the Golden Gate Bridge less money may be available through governmental sources and if little or no money can be generated then it may not be worth doing in the first place.
Let one man take it over and provide revenue to keep the Tram going. That man would be Donald Trump, but we all know the Tram would now be the TRUMP in gigantic letters; almost as big as that sign on one of the Southtown buildings that can be seen as far away as... pick a location and you can see it.
Along time ago a social commentator said"nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." What in hell are we thinking? It wasn't bad enough that our wonderful administration changed the logo from "the tram" to "RIOC". Do we really think that people come from miles around to ride "The RIOC"? And what kind of stupidity is it to even think of ads and promos on the TRAM cabins? Please RIOC, leave bad enough alone. No ads, no sponsors and hopefully some day soon no YOU.
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