ESPNMAG.com - They must be (mile) high

Who does Denver think it is? Who went and made Mile High Stadium the Sistine Chapel? It's over, done, finished. The Broncos are moving across the street, and the name's not going with them.

Deal with it -- because it happens everywhere.

What we're hearing out of Denver is pretty pretentious. The new stadium's board of directors sold the naming rights to a top-notch financial firm for $60 million, and the fans are blaming the firm for not naming the place Son of Mile High Stadium, or Mile High Stadium Jr., or Mile High Stadium 2, or just plain Mile High.

Instead, it'll be called Invesco Field at Mile High -- which sounds pretty fair to me, but not to the people of Denver.

They think Mile High Stadium is a sacred name. They're going to call the new stadium whatever they want, and one of their newspapers is even going along with them. The Denver Post, failing to report the facts, will only refer to it as Mile High Stadium.

It's wrong, and the rest of the NFL knows it's wrong.

Because we've lost our stadiums, too.

The city of San Francisco had a romantic name for its home field -- Candlestick Park -- yet fans have managed to call it 3Com for some time now without keeling over.

The city of Washington had RFK Stadium -- with stands that bounced up and down like old Mile High Stadium does -- but the team is up the Beltway now in FedEx Field, and 80,000 still manage to show up.

The city of Pittsburgh had Three Rivers Stadium, where they wore hard hats, smoked cigars and made immaculate receptions, but now the Steelers will live and breathe in Heinz Field.

Those three teams alone have 12 Super Bowl trophies between them, and Denver's got just two, so spare us the superiority argument -- we've all lost our playgrounds:

Miami doesn't even play its Orange Bowl at the Orange Bowl.

Seattle's Kingdome ain't even a dome anymore.

Los Angeles ain't even in the league anymore.

Tampa's Big Sombrero gave way to Raymond James Stadium (Raymond James being another -- ta da -- investment firm).

Adelphia Coliseum is not to be confused with Philadelphia Coliseum.

No one in San Diego calls it "The Murph" anymore; it's the "Q" (for Qualcomm).

Cellular phones work in Charlotte's Ericsson Stadium.

The music works in Indy's RCA Dome.

There are Giants fans who yearn for Yankee Stadium.

And Jets fans who miss Shea.

Patriots fans who grew up in Schaefer.

Lions fans who grew up in Tiger.

Bills fans who wish they were still Rich.

Vikings fans who preferred the Met.

And Eagles fans who want to blow up the Vet (but that's a whole other column).

At least Denver has "Mile High" in its new stadium title, so these folks have nothing to complain about. The better idea is to examine why the stadium board sold out -- because they didn't have to.

Cleveland managed to name its new playground Cleveland Browns Stadium. Cincinnati named its stadium after Paul Brown. And Kansas City's was named Arrowhead Stadium before the bottled water came out -- and still is.

The point is, if you're going to be mad, be mad at the stadium's owners, be mad at the 21st century, be mad at what's become of the multi-billion-dollar league.

Better yet, get together, pony up another 60 mil and hand it all over to the board. Then you can have your Mile High back.

And don't scoff -- that's just what some fans in Green Bay want to do. Lambeau Field is under renovation, and people up on the Tundra say they may be willing to pay a sales tax to keep it Lambeau Field. Otherwise, by 2003, the Packers could be playing at Swanson's Frozen Food Field at Lambeau.

Say that three times fast.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.