A fter being pilloried in the press and made the new poster child for capitalist excess, Enron is being handed the final indignity: The Houston Astros baseball team has gone to court to take the company's name off its stadium. The humiliation is now complete: The former energy giant is being stripped of its association with the national pastime.
Attorneys for the Astros this week filed suit in the court overseeing Enron's bankruptcy proceedings to force the company to sell its naming rights to the stadium in which the team plays. Three years ago, the company agreed to pay $100 million to put its name on the field, uniforms and other promotional materials in the stadium for 30 years. Thus far, Enron has lived up to the agreement. It has paid $10.25 million for the privilege, while there are doubts about the company's ability to pay the $3.7 million due in August, the company is not yet in default.
The Astros are not willing to wait until then, however. They worry that the team is being stained by the Enron fiasco. Their court order states: "The Enron logo displayed on the Stadium wrongly suggests to the public that the Astros are associated with the alleged bad business practices of Enron. As it stands, the Houston Astros arguably are viewed as Enron's team." But that's not all. "The current public perception of Enron is incompatible with the honesty and integrity embodied in baseball, as America's national pastime, and espoused by the Houston Astros," the motion concludes.