Advertising on Light Rail

I was watching the Suns game last night, and when the commercial for the All-Star Game came on, I realized that I had completely forgotten that it was coming to town. Then, I read this article this morning about the All-Star game and NBA and Suns' desire to advertise on the outside of the new light rail cars.

I have now seen some of the shiny new light rail trains and their slate/teal/purple color scheme. They look very nice, but I have to say that they should make an exception for the All-Star game if it will really generate $1.5 million in additional revenue.

The reason why cities attempt to land things like All-Star games and Super Bowls is to attract tourists and money to town. Why leave millions on the table? I am not saying that you should wrap every train from top to bottom to look like basketballs, but there must be an agreement that can be reached where they could do some reasonable advertising.

Not only that, but this is an opportunity to put a protocal in place that allows other events to understand what it takes financially to advertise. I understand where Vice Mayor Jones is coming from on the uniformity thing, but if you only do it on rare major event occasions, it would be a great way to allow the light rail to contribute a little bit more financially.