Headline Surfer photo by Henry Frederick / The Daytona Beach News-Journal has a prominent story today on naming rights with no mention or photo of the naming rights debacle of the 'News-Journal Center.' Insead, accompanying the story is a picture of a kid wearing a grey hoodie who looks like Justin Bieber riding a bicycle along a county trail.
DAYTONA BEACH -- So Volusia County is interested in seeking out private entities for naming rights to the Ocean Center or any number of its parks and trails.
Sign me up. I'm prepared to write a check right now for five bucks. Try this on for size: "Headline Surfer Ocean Center."
I've got the surfer; they've got the ocean. It's a win-win.
Yes, the county could tape one of my business cards for "Headline Surfer on each of the front entranceway glass doors when they hold the next "Daytona Beach News-Journal Home Show."
After all, $5 is something, isn't it? That's about all I can spare.
I've got to be realistic: I am a small business owner and our little media outlet doesn't get CRA, ad authority, hospital authority, public college or county government monies directly or indirectly like the print medium here -- home of the Daytona 500 and the World's Most Famous Beach.
How the News-Journal can afford to rent out the Ocean Center like it did last weekend while laying off 15 employees just a month ago along with the sudden departure of its publisher at the start of Bike Week is beyond me.
I could not help, but react with amazement while reading overnight stories what the aging News-Journal print readers will see when they pick up their paper from the driveway day with one story in particular: The idea of the county offering naming rights to private companies as a means to raise money.
It was just a few hours ago that I spoke with County Chair Jason Davis and Dist. 3 Councilwoman Deb Denys about the council's "retreat" held earlier Thursday and not a word was mentioned about this.
Oh, the irony of it all.
The News-Journal of all entities -- the Daytona Beach Regional Chamber of Commerce's "official Newspaper of Bike Week" and until not that long ago, the "official newspaper of Daytona International Speedway" -- would write about naming rights, considering the debacle of the newspaper's former owners.
How soon we forget the $13 million naming rights since-deceased Publisher Tippen Davidson paid for the News-Journal Center on Beach Street.
What county officials don't like being reminded of is the $14 million in public funding, primarliy through ECHO and CRA grants, that was provided to Davidson -- after all, the total cost of the initial "Lively Arts Center," the precursor to the "News-Journal Center, was a whopping $27 million. The Ocean Cener expansion, by comparison was about $88 million.
Do the math: Tippen uses $13 million in newspaper money without telling minority shareholder Cox Enterprises, an Atlanta media comglomorate. The newspape is sued and the rest is ugly from there.
So subtract $13 million from $27 million and you get $14 million, which came from the taxpayers.
The first thing that came to mind in reading today's story headlined, "Volusia officials consider naming rights to raise money," was how the writer or his editors made no mention of the News-journal naming rights, while stating,Volusia County has plenty of experience naming rooms and buildings. It has its Thomas C. Kelly Administration Building in DeLand, home of the recently dubbed Frank T. Bruno Jr. County Council Chambers. It has parks named after a Realtor, an attorney, a city councilman and two lifeguards.
And speaking of further irony, there was talk a couple of years ago when Michael Redding and his Halifax Media bought the News-Journal off the scrap heap in a federal court-supervised sale for $19 million (the judge earlier ruled Cox's nearly 50% share of the News-Journal was worth $129 million) of actually selling off the naming rights.
The $19 million from Redding's purchase went to Cox. Tippen and his family got nothing and 400 people -- half of the then-800 employees -- lost their jobs leading up to and shortly after the ownership change.
Daytona State College ended up with the News-Journal Center after agreeing to maintain the "News-Journal Center" naming rights.
Early on, Redding and the college were in discussion that had the college removing the newspaper's name from the cultural arts center in exchange for $1 million to Redding's Halifax Media. That hasn't materialized. At least not yet.
And speaking of $1 million, this morning's News-Journal story on naming rights made a reference to the following: In Volusia, $1 million a year in naming rights would cover the annual shortfall facing Votran, the county's public transportation system.
The last time I looked, the Votran buses have ads on them from pivate businesses.
But hey, here's an idea, the county could pay Headline Surfer to promote Votran bus ridership through our advertising rotatos. After all, we are geater Daytona Beach's 24/7 Internet newspaper, just a little motre than a week from celebrating our 5th anniversay. And our ad prices are far less than the Daytona daily that "offers" the electeds the opinion page "Sunday community voices" to promote their agendas.