They just opened a new arena over in Raleigh. It's called, appropriately enough, the Raleigh Sports and Entertainment Arena. That's not the official name, though. The new barn doesn't really have a name. And that's just the beginning of the mess.

See, back when Jim Valvano was still paying players at N.C. State, the fine folks there decided they needed a big-ass basketball arena to throw in the face of those snotty UNC fans. For reasons that I can't fathom, N.C. State fans have this horrible inferiority complex when it comes to the Tar Heels (but not Duke; like I said, I don't understand). In any case, they needed a new hoops barn.

Well, push came to shove, and they finally started to build the damned thing about 10 years later, once the Hartford Whalers took up residence as the Carolina Hurricanes and started playing 75 miles away in Greensboro. The Hurricanes and N.C. State both kicked in a lot of cash to build the new mausoleum. And that's where the naming rights come in.

N.C. State originally sold the naming rights to a major contributor, a guy who I'll call "the Pork King." He's the former owner of a huge pork farming company. Then, apparently, N.C. State also sold the naming rights to the Hurricanes. Or maybe not. It's real hard to say. All the sides have different stories, and I'm hard pressed to care (it's not my college or my hockey team involved in the dispute.

Here's the thing. All folks agree that "The Raleigh Sports and Entertainment Center" is a cumbersome and dull name. All folks agree that there has to be a better name. It's just that there's money in naming stadiums, and everyone wants a piece. Except for the Pork King. He's already paid his $5 to $10 million and wants to name the thing "Pork King Coliseum" or some such.

My favorite sports teams play in stadiums whose names have not been sold (Kauffman and Arrowhead Stadiums in Kansas City) and my alma mater also has not sold off the names of its arenas (as yet, though the Wal-Mart heirs do want to build a "Walton Arena" on the Missouri campus). For that matter the Durham Bulls do not play in Lucky Strike Stadium. They play in Durham Bulls Athletic Park (and previously played in the now "historic" Durham Athletic Park).

I know that sports is big money, and that sticking your name on a stadium is loads of free advertising (well, not exactly free, but you don't see 3Com paying ESPN every time a Niners game is on the network). But you know, government is big business, too. And if you think about it, after sports, politics is probably the number two entertainment medium in the world.

Don't believe me? How many times in the past year have you used the word hummer? How many times before this year? This is a term that's been used in all sorts of (non-porno) mainstream movies, but it took a cigar and a blue dress to truly break that word into the common vernacular.

So, in this era of fiscal responsibility, why not "The 2000 Presidential Election, brought to you by Ford, which wants to ask you the question, Have you driven a Ford lately?" Candidates already sell themselves out to the highest-bidding PAC. I see a chance to get above board here.

"Hi. You may not know me, but I'm a candidate for president. I was a Vietnam POW and I cheated on my wife. Do you know me now?" And then the card can type out: JOHN MCCAIN. Member since 1975 or whatever.

Or maybe this. Two candidates are sitting in a bar, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"Hi. My friend Bill and I don't like to talk about which of us is more boring."

"Nope, And that's why we drink Miller Lite. So that we can argue over which is the more important reason to drink this fine, union-produced product. I myself prefer to quaff the brew because of the select hops grown by Ed Durst in the Willamette Valley of Oregon."

"And I prefer this fine malt beverage because of the smoothness imparted by barley grown by Steve Simmons in Wisner, Nebraska."

The possibilities are truly endless. The Colorado State Capitol might be renamed the Coors House of Hitler Study. Private universities have sold their names for years (the American Tobacco heirs bought Trinity College, moved it to Durham and named it for themselves). Why not state schools? The University of Pittsburgh could become Broadcast.com U. The University of Illinois (where Mosiac, the first graphic Internet browser, was first developed) could become Netscape State.

All this naming silliness is why there is a big pink and green structure called the Raleigh Sports and Entertainment Center. In the next year it will become the Red Hat System, or the Nuclear Power Industry Reactor, or yes, the Pork King Coliseum. And everyone will get paid.

Rest assured, above all else, everyone will get paid.

Jon Worley lobbied hard for a street light at a certain intersection in Clovis, N.M. The city finally put one up a few years after he left, but the light was not named for him but for the person who paid for it.