How many times have you heard people say there was no way of predicting the collapse of Enron?

Fact is, the writing was on the wall – the wall of a baseball stadium.

Enron was doomed to fail from the day in 1999 the company wrote that $100 million US cheque to the Houston Astros for rights to name Enron Field.

The sports gods have been ruthless in dealing with the corporate hubris associated with the mad dash by sports owners to cash in on arena-rights naming deals with major corporations.

Greedy sports owners bent on spoiling athletes with obscene salaries have proven they’ll stop at nothing to make a buck.

With the casualty list of corporations whose names are on sports centres growing at an alarming rate in recent years, the purists have been applauding from the not-so-cheap seats.

Indeed, sports shrines should pay tribute to builders or their communities, not stock-market ticker symbols.

But now corporations are pulling in the reins and naming rights have become a hard sell.

The jinx of having the company name emblazoned on a sports shrine has claimed numerous victims, including Canadian Airlines, which fell on hard times and was eventually taken over by Air Canada soon after signing a $650,000-a-year naming-rights deal.

Two years ago, the Canadian Airlines Saddledome, the Olympic legacy originally known as the Olympic Saddledome, became the Pengrowth Saddledome to honour Pengrowth Management in a deal believed to be worth about the same as the Canadian Airlines pact.

Although stock in Pengrowth’s Energy Trust (PGR.UN-TSE) has been plunging with oil-and-gas prices to the $14 range from a 12-month high of $21.95, the company appears to be on solid footing.

Of course, the same could have been said about Enron a few months ago. Enron’s disgraced name still looms above the Astros’ glitzy park with the Houston-based energy trading company in dire straits and in the throes of the biggest corporate Chapter 11 bankruptcy in history.

Enron signed a 33-year, $100-million US deal with the Astros in 1999, which seems outrageous until you see the record $205 million US paid by Federal Express to name FedEx Field in Virginia, home of the NFL’s Washington Redskins.

The handful of pro teams left which haven’t cashed in with corporate stadium names, such as the Texas Rangers, have been striking out in pitching stadium naming rights.

No wonder. Considering the carnage of bankrupt or financially strapped companies with their names on a sports marquee, any company would have to be nuts to tempt the sports gods.

Enron was only one of four companies to go bankrupt in 2001 which had their names on stadiums. The others were National Car Rental, whose parent company, ANC Rental Corp., filed for bankruptcy, leaving Florida’s National Car Rental Centre in a lurch; PSINet, sponsor of the Baltimore Ravens’ NFL stadium; and Trans World Airlines, sponsor of the St. Louis Rams’ home park.

Several other stadium namers have been floundering financially, including troubled Air Canada, which paid $40 million for a 20-year deal in 1999, the Canadian record, to name the Air Canada Centre, home of Toronto’s Maple Leafs and Raptors.

The most successful stadium-naming deals have been by companies which need name recognition, making one wonder why Air Canada would want its name on a sports marquee.

Geez, didn’t the airline already have a bad name?

Among the major naming-rights deals in Canada, only one company, Molson, which has the Molson Centre rights in Montreal ($21 million over 20 years), has seen its stock appreciate in the past year. Skyreach Equipment, which paid $3.4 million for a five-year deal to sponsor the Skyreach Centre in Edmonton, is not a publicly traded company.

The stampede by sports teams to hang their corporate shingle on stadiums has trampled some good names.

When the San Diego Padres sold their stadium rights to Qualcomm, the wireless telecommunications giant whose stock price has gone from $5 to $180 back to $40 while paying for the rights to rename Jack Murphy Stadium, they dumped on a newspaper columnist named Jack Murphy.

They knew Murphy wouldn’t kick up much of a fuss. He’s dead.

With most sports centres masquerading as giant ads these days, you go to a game and a commercial breaks out.

Fortunately, there are still some parks with a conscience.

McMahon Stadium, home of the Calgary Stampeders and the University of Calgary, owner of the park, continues to honour the McMahon brothers, Frank and George, the one-time community boosters who donated $300,000 towards the $1,050,000 price tag when the stadium was built in 1960.

Now, there’s an old-fashioned stadium name worthy of a tip of the fedora.

* STREET TALK: “The major indexes and many individual large-cap stocks have much resistance overhead that could take many months to work through. The winners of the last bull market are unlikely to be the leaders again.” — Robert Dickey, technical strategist, RBC Dain Rauscher.

* BIG DIPPER: The same day that Research Capital analyst downgraded Wi-Lan from accumulate to hold, citing poor near-term visibility, the stock plunged eight per cent to $3.35.

* SAGE ADVICE: “Beware of little expenses – a small leak will sink a great ship.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century investor and politician.

HOT ALBERTA STOCK: Ridgeway Petroleum

RGW-CDNX $2.90



Up 60 cents (+26.1%) on 546,500 shares (for week ending Jan. 25).

Now here's something to write home about: a Canadian Venture Exchange stock that trades on heavy volume. Calgary-based Ridgeway has created some excitement over its potential as a developer of helium and carbon dioxide. The stock has been on fire with the share price more than doubling in the past three months.



COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Oncolytics Biotech

ONC-TSE $3.75

Down $1.02 (-21.4%) on 817,700 shares (for week ending Jan. 25).

Look up 'volatility' in the dictionary and you're likely to see an Oncolytics logo. The Calgary-based cancer-therapy company continued its wild swings, claiming cold-stock-of-the-week honours for the second time in three weeks. In between, it was the hot stock. Even news that the company had filed a clinical trial application with Health Canada to initiate Phase I and II trials for the use of Reolysin for treatment of brain-cancer patients couldn't stop the profit takers.