If you’ve already booked your tickets for the Detroit Tigers’ 2027 home opener, just be forewarned you won’t be at Comerica Park.
Instead, you’ll be buying your overpriced pretzels at Fifth Third Park, which is the stadium’s new corporate sponsor. The new name might not overly surprise those in Detroit, considering that the baking company merged with Comerica earlier this year. Fifth Third has also been the corporate sponsor for numerous Tigers minor-league teams.
Social media widely mocked the disappointing Tigers on Monday evening, and understandably so. We’re here to join in on the fun, though other stadiums leaguewide also deserve our wrath.
For this list, we’ve excluded any stadium that is either named for the team or a person. That total comes to eight ballparks when you include the Red Sox and Fenway Park, which is named after the Fenway neighborhood. That said, there are four stadiums — Fenway, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, and Dodger Stadium — that would immediately earn the top spot for selling the corporate naming rights. The jersey patches were bad enough.
We’ve also omitted stadiums who have a corporate sponsor but you wouldn’t initially realize it. Do you think of “Citi” when you think about the Mets’ venue, or “City,” as in New York City? The same idea applies with Milwaukee’s American Family Field and Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, among others.
Finally: Coors Field was not penalized for having an alcohol company as its corporate sponsor.
Honorable mention: Progressive Field (Cleveland Guardians)
Corporate sponsor: Progressive (insurance)
Of all the stadiums on this list, Progressive Field has had its name the longest; the building opened in 1994 as Jacobs Field before entering a licensing deal with Progressive ahead of the 2008 season.
And granted, Progressive Field is actually a fine name, and there are far worse stadium titles across the four major North American sports. It nonetheless cracks our list because of the irony that the Guardians, a team that had vehemently refused to change its name from the Indians, were playing at “Progressive” Field even when they still had Chief Wagoo as its mascot.
To be clear, we find it humorous more than anything. And most importantly, the team that picked an insurance company didn’t choose State Farm. Because why would someone named Jake have an issue with State Farm?
4. Oracle Park (San Francisco Giants)
Corporate sponsor: Oracle Corporation (data and technology)
Oracle Park sounds interesting, but it’s also more confusing than a corporate sponsor should be. What does an oracle have to do with a stadium best known for Barry Bonds crushing homers into the San Francisco Bay?
Call it nostalgia, but AT&T Park fit the stadium much better. People automatically know AT&T, and it rolls off the tongue perfectly. The only thing Oracle Park has working for it is that it’s fewer syllables.
3. Daikin Park (Houston Astros)
Corporate sponsor: Daikin (HVAC equipment)
Back in the day, you could actually sign fictional corporate sponsors for your “Madden” stadium in franchise mode. Most of the names were pretty ridiculous, so the since-destroyed Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minnesota might become “Premiere Production Stadium.” At least you earned additional funds to spend on free agents!
Daikin’s name doesn’t pop, and the company isn’t even headquartered in Texas. We’d be willing to be slightly more generous if it was a local company, but they’re based out of Japan. No disrespect intended, but that’s not good enough to save the former-Minute Maid Park from cracking our list.
1A. Rate Field (Chicago White Sox)
Corporate sponsor: Rate Companies (residential mortgage lender)
Yep, we’re foregoing the No. 2 spot to list two stadiums with such absurd names that we’re not sure where to start.
Most of us ‘90s kids grew up with “U.S. Cellular Field,” which replaced Comiskey Park as the venue’s name in 2003. We’re still not sure how a Field becomes a Park after 12 years, but what do we know?
The Cell then became Guaranteed Rate Field in 2017, which in itself was odd. But a 2024 rebranding resulted in Rate Field. Seriously? We’re not even sure a bad Netflix-only movie would pick a company with such a bizarre name, much less one that hosts baseball games.
At this time last week, Rate Field would have easily topped this list. But now?
1B. Fifth Third Park (Detroit Tigers)
Corporate sponsor: Fifth Third Bank (Banking)
Call it recency bias, but we wouldn’t really care if Comerica Park adopted a more recognizable name. The most egregious thing that the Tigers did to their stadium was removing the “keyhole” path between the mound and batter’s box. Players didn’t like it, and their moodiness won out over tradition. Meh.
Serious question: Had anyone heard of Fifth Third Bank before Monday? We know that Chase and TD were likely unavailable, but of all the banking companies to pick?
Much of what we said about Rate Field applies here. Let’s just be grateful Comerica Park didn’t suddenly become FanDuel Stadium, though. There’s already enough betting advertisements out there.
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