Flash: Fat Cats May Party Less!

Not surprisingly we're seeing stories detailing how corporate America will be responding to the credit crisis. Even less surprising, they all say hospitality revenue will take a hit.

Peter Corbett in the Arizona Republic:

But the economic meltdown could put a damper on entertaining by those other sponsors as well, said Ray Artigue, executive director of the sports-business master's program at Arizona State University.

"Companies are less likely to throw a big party in the face of employee layoffs and want to be careful how they conduct themselves," Artigue said. "And that goes double for public entities."

But in Jon Show and John Ourand's piece for the Sports Business Journal, this caught me by surprise:

Others, like Radiate CEO Jay Lenstrom, believe financial companies will begin to shy away from title sponsorships. “I think entitlement will soon be a thing of the past,” he said.

I find that hard to believe simply because being the "Northen Trust Open" and all of the publicity that comes with that justifies the costs far more than a hospitality tent experience. No?