And not at the original joke!

drinking milk and it came out of my nose, died laughing, totally cracked up, not

the President of the FIA, which is the governing body for all racing leagues (except for NASCAR and IndyCar and a few others), Max Moseley, was photographed in a sex club in London dallying with two girls dressed in Nazi attire and who were allegedly spanking him.

BMW and Mercedes called on his resignation because of the whole incident in general but the Nazi thing in particular and he wrote a public response that “you would expect two German companies would blow this event all out of proportion” and he didn’t resign. That’s no different than dressing up as Amos and Andy for Halloween and then if an African American at your party complained that that was racist saying, “Oh you would expect that from a black person.” He’s the only “commissioner” of a sports entity who is worse than Bud.

in Foxborough, home of the Patriots was GMCI net stadium, or something like that before it opened. There are a few more, but my memory is sortof slow today. As for the list of stadiums with multiple sponsored-names, that list is very long, and growing nearly by the day

Right here in the Chicago area we had a stadium change names before it was opened. I know it’s not a major field but Toyota Park in Bridgeview (the home of the CHicago Fire Soccer Team) was originally going to be named after Bridgeview Bank. I remember seeing all sorts of promotional material about this, especially at that bank since I used to use that bank. Not long before it was to open, the deal with Bridgeview Bank fell thru and Toyota came in and grabbed the naming rights.

Kasey

… it used to be that the people of Portland were viewed as being kind of blase about having a major league team relocate. But maybe now they are more amenable. In any case it doesn’t seem like any teams are in serious trouble — the Marlins would be one, but they have a new ballpark in place.

Tampa Bay might have been another; let’s see if their AL championship results in an actual increase in season tickets and attendance, etc. for 2009. If it doesn’t, then they might still wind up moving.

As it stands now, the Trail Blazers are the only major pro team there. I know Portland is trying to get a MLS team. I know a lot of people don’t consider soccer to be a major sport in the US. MLB wouldn’t have to deal with a tremendous amount of competition for the sports dollar. I don’t know if the current capacity of 19.566 of PGE Park would be enough for a temporary MLB facility. That’s a high capacity for a AAA stadium.

I see the Portland metro area has about 2 million people, which is more than what Milwaukee has. It looks to be a similar size market to Cincinnati. It’s not a crazy idea that Portland could support a MLB team. I think existing teams would rather stay in their own cities.

It’s owned by the City of Portland. Along with the Beavers (AAA), the Timbers play there right now (league soccer), along with a bunch of high school sports.

As for MLS…Given that Seattle just got an MLS franchise, it’s gonna be tough for Portland to pull a team any time soon, especialy because MLS is hoping that Oregon’s soccer fanbase (which is really big) will be part of the Sounders base (kind of how they try and encourage Oregon to be Mariner fans).

Anyway, Portland’s chance might be slim, but it has nothing to do with the stadium or MLS at the moment.