Despite being in the media capital of the world, New York’s professional sporting venues have been largely exempt from the stadium naming-rights merry-go-round. Only Continental Airlines Arena has been corporately-marked thus far, and it almost doesn’t count as it houses two New Jersey-tagged teams (and not for long, with both the Devils and Nets departing over the next few years).

All that’s about to change, with Queens as ground zero. The New York Mets and Citigroup have struck a 20-year deal (optionable to 35 years) to name the team’s new ballpark CitiField, to the tune of $20 million per year.

Note that this deal applies to the future home of the Mets, breaking ground tomorrow and due to open in 2009 — not to their current haunt Shea Stadium. The local news stations here in New York have been teasing the news all night as a renaming of Shea, probably due to the misinterpretation of the AP wire story that begins with the line, “Goodbye Shea, hello CitiField”. Read the whole damn article before going on the air, you hacks…

Can any other naming-rights deal trump that $20-per pricetag? Well, the crosstown Yankees also will have a brand-spanking new ballpark going up soon; and in this town, the Bronx Bombers can just about always top their NL brethren. That said, and given that few areas in sports are off-limits to revenue-generating opportunity, I’d guess that the new Yankees Stadium will retain the name of just “Yankees Stadium”. The perceptional fallout would negate any gain for either team or sponsor.

UPDATE, 11/13/2006: Well, drat. Turns out the stadium name will be Citi Field, not CitiField. That spacing makes all the difference…