Our naming rights motto? Out with culture, in with cash

And so we must bid adieu to that venerable venue, the Spokane Opera House.

The city’s beloved stage and concert hall, created for Expo ‘74, will henceforth (or until the next negotiation, anyway) be known as the INB Performing Arts Center.

Is that “In-Buh PAC” or “In-Bee PAC,” for short?

Either way, there’s never been a more artless acronym for an arts center.

The Opera House name was replaced by the above as part of a 10-year, $1.5 million deal with Inland Northwest Bank, a Wednesday Spokesman-Review story reported.

It seems like this stuff happens more and more as cash-strapped public entities whore out civic landmarks to be billboards for the private sector. Businesses benefit from the exposure much the way a mutt benefits from lifting a leg to mark a fireplug.

The demise of the Opera House identity, according to the story, is the second sponsorship deal in recent months “as the Spokane Public Facilities District tries to raise additional money to help pay for maintenance and planned renovations.”

Group Health struck a $75,000-a-year deal in March for the privilege of sponsoring the new Convention Center exhibit hall. I shudder to imagine what a health agency will come up with.

Welcome to the Group Health Turn Your Head and Cough Corridor.

Oh, why must I always be Spokane’s Voice of Treason?

But the Spokane Opera House was such a self-esteem builder.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d rather catch the mumps than go to a screeching opera.

(Unless you count visits by Riverdance, I don’t recall the Opera House actually staging many operas.)

But having a so-called “Opera House” made it seem like Spokane had culture outside the Safeway yogurt aisle.

I know I’m tilting at windmills again. But I find it sad that a ballpark can’t be a ballpark anymore.

The Mariners play on Safeco Field. No wonder they suck.

Spokane’s treasured Indians Stadium became Seafirst Stadium back in 1994. A few years later, Bank of America gobbled up Seafirst. So Brett Sports, which owns the Indians franchise, went shopping for a new sponsor.

Voila! Avista Stadium was born.

With astronomical rates and grossly overpaid executives, the only thing Avista should sponsor is a colonoscopy clinic.

Now I’m sure Inland Northwest Bank is a fine banking institution, solid as the Rock of Hudson.

What I’m saying is hooray for INB. Don’t blame the bank. INB’s just looking out for INB and that’s America, dammit!

I hold the Spokane Public Facilities District weasels responsible. (Not to mention Brett Sports, which gets a healthy cut of the action for helping broker this deal.)

I don’t want to be picky. But having “Inland Northwest” in the title gives any business a provincial “near nature, near Post Falls,” kind of vibe.

Just thinking out loud here, but International Opera House of Pancakes would have conveyed a much more global image.

Mark my words, people. The day is fast coming when all our municipal icons will bear the brazen stamp of a business logo.

I can see it now: the Riverfront Park Viagra Clocktower. Or the Brett Sports Waste to Energy Plant.

(My column can be had for a turkey-and-Swiss Domini Sandwiches contract.)

History will show we hawked our Spokane Opera House moniker for a bag of airline peanuts. Sure, $1.5 mil sounds like a windfall. But it’s nothing compared to what we could have scored had we aimed for the top and sold out to America’s wealthiest diva, the woman whose one name turns everything to gold.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you The Spokane Oprah House.