When President Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination on September 6 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, the Democratic National Committee apparently will be pretending that Bank of America Stadium isn’t called Bank of America Stadium.
According to the New York Daily News, fundraising emails suggest that the venue will be known simply as “Panther Stadium” that night.
As Kristen Lee of the Daily News explains it, the change has nothing to with, for example, a side deal with some other bank: “The link to Bank of America may have been an awkward reminder for Democrats of the financial crisis and the still-struggling U.S. economy. The bank sparked accusations of Wall Street greed just last year when it announced a plan to nickel and dime its customers by charging a $5 monthly fee to use its debit cards. The plan was scrapped after a massive uproar.”
Although we take no position on whether Obama should be re-elected or whether Mitt Romney should be the president (indeed, now that I no longer practice law I have become completely apolitical), the move seems goofy. The stadium has a name, as evidenced by the big sign that can be seen from I-77 in Charlotte. Would acknowledging the name of the stadium cause folks inclined to vote for Obama to flip to Romney?
Bank of America paid good money to attach its name to the stadium. If the name on the local football stadium is a problem, the convention should have been held in another city.
UPDATE 7:52 p.m. ET: The local host committee tells PFT that the “Bank of America” name has not been dropped, despite the fact that it has been dropped from fundraising emails.