Everyone in New Orleans is aware of the rechristening of the Louisiana Superdome as the “Mercedes-Benz Superdome.” The naming rights for the 36-year-old dome were sold to Mercedes-Benz exclusively for 10 years in a deal estimated to be worth $10 to $12 million per year. That’s a pretty long-term investment.

I wonder if there are any provisions in the contract for the Mercedes-Benz name to be deleted should we have another catastrophe like Katrina. Don’t know if the Mercedes people would want their image associated in the news media with 50,000 poor New Orleanians suffering in a filthy shelter. Come to think about it, I have nothing against naming rights to help defray costs; for example, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell (Oil). I doubt, however, that Shell’s deal with Jazz Fest extends for 10 years at a time. That’s a really long time to be affiliated with one entity. After all, anything can happen in 10 years (like a hurricane that decimates not only the citizenry but the sports-playing potential of a city). I must congratulate the city and the city’s Sports Foundation for getting Mercedes-Benz into this deal.

Of course, all this money goes to the Saints and to the state. The Saints are now committed to be in New Orleans through 2024, and this naming rights deal will help ensure that there won’t be any more threats to move the team to another city for a while, as the state and city won’t have to come up with cash to get them to stay here.

I’m grateful that the Saints will remain in New Orleans. But not being a huge sports fan, I would wonder why any big corporation would tie its marketing capital up for 10 years in naming rights for a sports stadium. One hundred million dollars could be invested in a lot of other things in New Orleans that would really qualify as “economic development” (the naming rights deal is being touted by Governor Bobby Jindal and Saints owner Tom Benson as being a huge economic development initiative; in other words, we get to keep our Saints here instead of having them decamp to Utah or some such).

I wonder how far $100 million could go towards education, crime abatement, or infrastructure improvements. In the long term, wouldn’t improvements in these areas have a much greater economic impact than the New Orleans Saints? But an investment in education, etc., doesn’t carry the same cachet. It’s all about marketing and appearances, isn’t it?

Having an NFL franchise in our city generates income in many ways: salaries, equipment and capital purchases, taxes generated through purchases by visitors to the city. In the long run, though, what really matters is the ability of New Orleans to get considered to host a Super Bowl. Without a major NFL franchise, we’d be out of the running as a Super Bowl host city.

So we’re committed to the Saints and they’re committed to us—at least through 2024, with the help of Mercedes-Benz’s contribution. It’s sort of pitiful, isn’t it, that the NFL, in some ways, controls the destiny of a great city like New Orleans?