FIFA's temporary stadium names

FIFA uses generic names for stadiums where it holds games. At least in Toronto, local signage has largely been updated to use “Toronto Stadium”. The usual name is “BMO Field” which is not very similar, so people from out of town could reasonably be confused. Should “Toronto Stadium” go in name for duration of the tournament? Or better in alt_name so it can be found in search?


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name:fifa maybe?

Anyway just in case you going to change name to FIFAs temporary name, the actual name should be added as loc_name.

Sure, we can temporarily change the name=* and name:*=* tags (presumably in the three host nations’ main languages). I see that Apple Maps has already done so in all the languages they support. It shouldn’t be too difficult to coordinate a rename back after the games are over.

Levi’s San Francisco Bay Area Stadium sold naming rights to each entrance and various other parts of the stadium, all signposted so prominently that you can easily make out the logos in aerial imagery. I assume those are being covered up in favor of more generic names too.

(Now, if FIFA wanted to take a principled stand against corporate sponsorship, the train and light rail stations in front of the stadium are tributes not to the host country but rather to the amusement park next door.)

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Perfect use for int_name= ?

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Maybe, but even then only on a temporary basis. These stadiums keep their sponsored names when they host CONCACAF matches or international friendlies.

Technically can use name:en-001= vs name:en-003=

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alt_name or int_name or name:fifa or name:en-002 all work out to basically the same thing: a secondary name that’s hopefully searchable, but not the primary name that will shown everywhere

I’m hoping more for discussion on whether “____ Stadium” is considered the primary name during the (weeks-long) event, and perhaps past experiences from previous World Cup hosts

Yep, for sure!

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There would be as well… Proposal:Temporary (conditional) - OpenStreetMap Wiki

which would temporary overwrite name, though in terms of support of the temporary namespace the result might be even worse.

The question is… would you change the name in general for all objects if they are different for 3 months or not? This might be a question the local community needs to answer.

I didn’t even know that this temporary renaming was a “thing” until clicking on this thread mere minutes ago.

Personally I think changing name would be absurd, because despite whatever FIFA insists the stadiums be called they’ll almost certainly not be called those names by anyone except people who are obliged to by contract. I’m amazed that signage at transit stations has been temporarily changed to suit.

I was going to suggest alt_name=________ Stadium for now, then old_name:2026-06-12--2026-07-02=______ Stadium thereafter (with the dates set to whenever games were played at the venue in question), but the more I think about it the more I convince myself to not do anything. The whole thing is just ridiculous; one big money-grubbing organization imposing on others to pretend that the names of these stadiums are different because the giant corporations that slapped their names on the sides of said stadiums didn’t pay the big money-grubbing organization enough shakedown money.

It’s three weeks’ worth of generic “«City» Stadium”, after which it’ll be completely forgotten was ever even a “thing”. Would data users even update their maps often enough to capture this change?

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That’s the thing… I highly doubt that. In the US, I fully agree with you. In the rest of the world folks will remember “New York Stadium”. They never heard Metlife Stadium before and will never hear it again afterwards. All they remember is the name during those days.

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[Checks notes]

New York New Jersey Stadium, you mean?

No offence but your argument would be a lot more persuasive if you didn’t bungle the temporary name anyway. :rofl:

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It’s not just the transit stations. Each of the stadiums is taking steps to rebrand, some more drastic than others. Some are dismantling their exterior signs:

while others are merely covering them up:

MetLife covered the interior and exterior signs with “New York New Jersey” banners, triggering a moment of existential crisis across the state before they made a quick save, co-naming it “New Jersey New York”. (Let’s show the world what a semicolon looks like!)

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I mean… no? People in Toronto who follow association football know it as “BMO Field”. Most other people in Toronto area probably don’t know its name by heart, but rather something like “the soccer stadium at the Exhibition”. Vast majority of people visiting from out of town won’t know “BMO Field” unless they already follow MLS, and all the signage will say “Toronto Stadium”.

I have very very little love for FIFA, but I also don’t love corporate naming of stadiums and event venues, and we’ve long lost the battle for the name of SkyDome.

I wouldn’t keep it long term - just there for the duration of the tournament or as long as the branding stays up. We don’t need the historical record after the fact in OSM.

Nominatim will, and if I was a data user wanting to use OSM data for anything to do with the World Cup, I’d make sure to update rather frequently :person_shrugging:

Signs vanishing here too:

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Considering that:

  • in OSM, we should follow the “on the ground” principle
  • in OSM, we shouldn’t map temporary changes, with “temporary” usually being understood as “shorter than a few weeks”
  • the tournament will last 5½ weeks
  • due to the underlying reason for the name change, the organisers will make sure to replace the name on every possible sign
  • due to the amount of signage that needs to be replaced, the process already started long ago (and reversing the process will take time too)
  • we don’t even know for sure if all the original names will return after the tournament (unless the sponsorship contracts are public?)

I guess that simply changing the value of the name tag could be just fine?

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Agreed in general. Regarding what happens after the fans head home:

Naming rights have fixed terms that would be public knowledge for any publicly owned stadium. It’s probably not worth getting into the finer details of the agreements between the city, stadium authority, management company, host committee, and naming rights sponsor. Some of the FIFA-compliant names are too clunky to use outside of this context anyways. If not for Levi’s having naming rights until at least 2033, San Francisco Bay Area Stadium would revert to Santa Clara Stadium. Most of the venues are only covering up the signs. I assume the ones pulling down their signs have a straightforward way to put them back up.

In the case of Kansas City, we’ve confined the sponsored name to just the pitch, while the stadium retains its traditional name. That’s probably taking it way too literally, but I’ve done the same thing at other stadiums that use the “X Field at Y” formula.

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Is it a name or a geographical description? It’s the main stadium in New York so New York Stadium.

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Hahaha, apologies but I can’t help but laugh at this idea. These stadiums are, in the US, mostly home to NFL teams, and the corporate sponsors pay tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to put their names on the facilities. These agreements are well known.

MetLife for example signed a 25-year-long agreement in 2011, paying $400,000,000 for its name to go on the stadium in New Jersey that is home to the NFL’s Giants and Jets. I guarantee any mention of “New Jersey New York Stadium” will be expunged and “MetLife Stadium” will be in its place again by the first week of August at the very latest, when the NFL preseason starts.

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No, it’s in New Jersey. It’s been a joke punchline that the New York Giants and New York Jets have played in New Jersey for 40+ years. :rofl:

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And the French Wikipédia page does not mention the temporary name.

After an extensive research on each of the 16 arenas, I conclude that the length of the naming rights agreement for the AT&T Stadium is probably undisclosed, and that the naming rights for the Estadio Akron expire in December 2027.

But I guess in some alternative universe one of them could by a chance expire in July 2026 instead! :sweat_smile:
(at least the guys in charge of changing the signs would have less work to do…)