PSINet was hardly a household word, but its stock price and reputation rode the wave of Internet mania. Now the company's future is in doubt.
Naming rights are more than a stamp on a stadium.
Contracts are like marriages, often involving joint advertising campaigns in which the team and the company lend their name, image and identity to each other. Edison International Inc., for example, has told the Anaheim Angels that it might have to cut back on marketing projects because of California's energy crisis. The company's troubled subsidiary, Southern California Edison Co., is teetering on bankruptcy. In Miami, Pro Player Stadium is still shopping for a new sponsor a year after Pro Player's parent company, Fruit of the Loom, filed for bankruptcy. The home of the Miami Dolphins and Florida Marlins was slighted by designer Perry Ellis, who bought the Pro Player brand name but passed on the stadium rights.