Naming of sporting events is a tricky business
We don’t know about you, but the fact that such a thing as the SpongeBob SquarePants 400 exists means the world is a brighter place today. A Sprint Cup Series race in Kansas in May this year will be known as the SpongeBob SquarePants 400 and the logo is just as magnificent as you might imagine.
An already weird season is now more surreal as the spring Kansas race will be known as the SpongeBob SquarePants 400 pic.twitter.com/kkfLtsAlq6
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) March 2, 2015
However, it isn’t even close to the weirdest name ever slapped on a sporting event
1. The Waste Management Phoenix Open
Best known probably as being the tournament where Tiger Woods shot an 82 back in January this tournament was once known as the dull FBR Open, after investment bank Friedman Billings Ramsey. But the financial crisis hit them hard so in stepped Waste Management, a $14billion company that is a giant of the, you guessed it, waste management business.
2. The Tobacco Bowl
No longer with us but this College Football game wheezed along from from 1949 all the way to 1982. Held in Virginia, at the heart of America’s tobacco industry the game was the centrepiece of the annual National Tobacco Festival. As the rather charming reference on the game’s Wikipedia page puts it ‘the game and festival both died off, apparently just another tobacco-related casualty’.
3. The TaxSlayer.com Bowl
In fairness we could pick at least 20 ridiclous Bowl names from past and present and as the sheer number of end-of-season ‘Bowl’ games continues to grow in college football, things are actually getting more bizarre. The TaxSlayer.com Bowl is a relatively new phenomenon, but it is attached to one of the oldest Bowls in the US.
Formerly known as the Gator Bowl which has existed since the 1940s, the good folks at TaxSlayer, who help Americans file their taxes online, got the title sponsorship in 2014.
4. Blue Jeans Go Green (TM) 200 presented by Cotton, The Fabric of Our Lives
Back to the wonderful world of NASCAR, and this title takes longer to say than the average pit stop. Formerly known as the ‘Dollar General 200 Fueled by AmeriGas’,the ‘Bashas’ Supermarkets 200′ and the ‘Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200’ (all of which could easily have made this list) the Blue Jeans Go Green (TM) 200 presented by Cotton, The Fabric of Our Lives is a real doozy of a name.
Won by Kyle Busch five times, the race is held in Avondale, Arizona.
5. David Chillery Still Celebrating His Divorce Selling Handicap Hurdle
Last, but by no means least, is this horse race held last year at Newton Abbott. The 2m 6f race got some attention when recently divorced David Chillery decided to really enjoy his day at the races by sponsoring a race. It cost him the princely sum of £300 to attach his moniker to the race and as he explained very matter-of-factly in the Express: “I love horse racing, I’m a big gambler and I am so pleased not to be married, so I combined the lot.”
