I disagree. I think the vast majority of sports fans don't really care that their stadium is the SunLife Stadium, or that their uniforms have a Microsoft logo plastered on.
It varies. Baseball fans I think would look at advertising on uniforms as distasteful if not disrespectful, but soccer fans don't seem to mind. Context matters, and that goes for stadium naming rights. In Newcastle, efforts to rename a stadium ran into significant opposition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James_Park#Renaming_of_the_s...
They don't care enough to riot, no, but I'm certain that given the choice they would rather not have advertising blasted at them. And they don't have a choice, since most major professional sports are not subject to ordinary anti-trust restrictions.
"Given the choice" would include paying (likely significantly) more for their tickets. With that in mind, I'm very inclined to agree with the GP that the vast majority of sports fans just don't care.
> And they don't have a choice, since most major professional sports are not subject to ordinary anti-trust restrictions.
You seem to imply there are monopolies in professional sports? You get that they literally compete against each other? And there are plenty of valid substitute products (other sports).
I'm not implying there are monopolies, it's a fact. Literal intra-league competition is irrelevant; aside from a few major markets with multiple franchises, teams in a league generally don't compete directly with each other for fans. It's unlikely that fans are going to switch to a remote competitor, that's why they call it the home team. People generally root for the teams where they grew up, or that their family has some connection to. And suggesting that other sports are commercially equivalent alternatives is like saying a monopoly in the automotive market is OK because there are trains.
