The use of naming rights as a marketing communications tool goes back over half a century, when Anheuser-Busch proposed renaming Sportsman's Park Budweiser Stadium. The resident St. Louis Cardinals rejected the idea but approved the name Busch Stadium, which Anheuser-Busch followed up with a new product called Busch Bavarian Beer. FedEx Field in Washington, D.C., Minute Maid Park in Houston, The American Airlines Theater in New York, Coca-Cola Stadium in Xi'an, China, and the Sony Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto are just a few of the many recent multimillion-dollar naming deals, and plenty more are on the way. Perhaps none has attracted as much attention, however, as the Dubai Metro Project in the Middle East.

1. What kind of companies do you think will be interested in leasing naming rights to the Dubai Metro stations? What benefits will they gain? Are there any drawbacks to the plan from the companies' point of view?
2. Following the RTA's announcement, the Toronto Transit Commission floated the idea of offering naming rights to some of the stations in Toronto's Metro system. Do you think the idea would work as well in an established system where familiar station names would be changed, as in a new system such as Dubai's? Why or why not?