The recently opened KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville, Kentucky sounds like an excellent place to grab some fried chicken, maybe even a Doublicious sandwich with its Hawaiian bread bun if you’re feeling particularly adventurous. The name conjures up images of some sort of fast-food fantasy paradise. Oh, never mind, it’s the University of Louisville’s new basketball arena…
The $238 million building, opened in October 2010, is the fifth largest of its kind in the United States. It has a high tech video and scoreboard system featuring impressive LED displays by the Daktronics company out of Brookings, South Dakota.
And thanks to a $13.5 million naming-rights deal with the fast food giant Yum! Brands, its attractions now include the fine foods of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.
Corporations buy naming rights for this type of large arena all the time, but this one really stands out to the Tickle City Award Committee, which has already covered Yum! Brands in previous posts about Taco Bell and A&W.
For one, it not only contains a recognizable brand name (KFC) but also a word which is usually used as an interjection (yum). It also has an exclamation point. Will announcers be required to put extra emphasis on Yum! when they are mentioning the stadium’s name in their broadcasts? (Dick Vitale’s characteristic rising and falling intonation while saying this name would be especially humorous.)
In order to acquire naming rights for a stadium or arena, different companies will place bids and the biggest offer usually takes it. The contracts range from 3 to 20 years with professional stadiums typically offering longer terms.
The KFC Yum! Center proudly touts more food concession points than any other college basketball arena in the country. Die-hard basketball fans will have to be polled as to whether they consider this one of the most important features for their team’s arena.
Louisville just beat the number 18 ranked Butler Bulldogs 88-73 in the stadium’s inaugural game. Perhaps it was a pregame snack of Pizza Hut pizza and Taco Bell burritos that sparked the Louisville players.
KFC Yum! Center, you are tickle city!
- Like This Post? Share the Ticklishness!
-
-
-
-
-
on November 19th, 2010 at 6:52 am
I am not really a sports fanatic but this is an amusing story. YUM!
on November 19th, 2010 at 7:52 am
This is hilarious. I can’t imagine telling friends, “I’m going to the KFC Yum! Center this weekend for the game” with a serious face. They named a stadium after fried chicken and an interjection. Need I explain more?
on November 19th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
At least it’s not the Urp.
on December 2nd, 2015 at 3:12 pm
My wife and I saw the same commercial a few weeks ago; we atcually paused the program we were watching and replayed the commercial two or three times! I’ve only seen it that one time, but we were taken aback by the hidden racism that is so prevalent in so many aspects of the media! Like you, I tried to find it on YouTube, because I had planned to post it on my blog.I have started a personal BOYCOTT of KFC as a result that commercial had me steaming! I will have to be one HUNGRY Negro to EVER cross the threshhold or buck up in the drive-thru of another KFC, for as long as I live.How in the HELL is KFC going to air/broadcast such an offensive and racially biased commercial of a Black family without at father! I still cannot get over the fact that in 2007, I am seeing negative images of Black families shown on prime time television! How many WHITE and BLACK families have seen that commercial and thought in the back of their minds how NORMAL that must be in our community I am sick!!!