THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

If a sports team had a stadium, it was probably named after the team that played there, like Yankee Stadium. Sometimes it was named after a geographical location or feature like Fenway Park. And sometimes it was named it was named after the owner or other prominent citizen who had a role in the teams history, like Comiskey Park or Shea Stadium. Municipal stadiums or arenas were often generic memorials such as Veterans Field if not named after a local hero. Lately however the lust for cash has led to a frenzy of naming rights deals that often lead to ridiculous and inappropriate combinations. The latest to surface comes to us from Florida.

In recent years, where stadium naming rights could be sold, universities and professional sports teams have sold them — to airlines and banks and companies that sell beer, soda, doughnuts, cars, telecommunications, razors and baseball bats. This led to memorable examples like Enron Field, the KFC Yum! Center and the University of Phoenix Stadium.

On Tuesday, that trend took another strange turn when Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, firmed a deal to rename its football building GEO Group Stadium. Perhaps that pushed stadium naming to its zenith, if only because the GEO Group is a private prison corporation.

For this partnership, there is no obvious precedent.

The university’s president described the deal as “wonderful” and the company as “well run” and by a notable alumnus. But it also left some unsettled, including those who study the business of sports and track the privatization of the prison industry. To those critics, this was a jarring case of the lengths colleges and teams will go to produce revenue, of the way that everything seems to be for sale now in sports — and to anyone with enough cash.

“This is an example of great donor intent, terrible execution,” said Paul Swangard, the managing director at the University of Oregon Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. “Here’s a guy with strong ties to the university, who wants to make a difference, and is mixing his philanthropic interest with a marketing strategy that doesn’t make any sense.”

Maybe it will serve as a reminder to those team members who may drop out of the program that there will always be a place for them.