Inside the Future Home of New York Jets, Giants

Mark Lamping, President and CEO of the New Meadowlands stadium, takes the Associated Press on a tour of the future home of the New York Jets and New York Giants. The new stadium will be unveiled this weekend with three college lacrosse games.

New football stadium worth price of admission?

BY KATIE STRANG

Giants co-owner John Mara and Jets owner Woody Johnson helped unveil the New Meadowlands Stadium - now 60 percent complete - in a special tour with local media yesterday.

The $1.6-billion facility, which will feature 40,000 square feet of video screens and displays, an adjoining rail station to accommodate fans and a capacity of 82,500, will serve as home to both the Giants and the Jets and will change its complexion to reflect the home team.

Yesterday it was revealed that the construction is "not only ahead of schedule, but on budget," according to New Meadowlands Stadium CEO Mark Lamping.

With the project under way and more than 1.3 million work hours spent, however, Mara and Johnson both addressed many fans' biggest concerns - the increasing financial burden they must endure to attend games, exacerbated by a struggling economy.

New football stadium worth price of admission?....

Allianz Drops Bid for Naming Rights

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

The Giants and the Jets said Friday that they had ended talks with Allianz, a German-based insurance company with connections to the Third Reich, about selling the naming rights to the $1.6 billion stadium they are building in the Meadowlands.

The decision came after two days of largely negative reaction to the possibility of a deal with Allianz, which insured facilities at Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and which deprived many Jewish customers of the proceeds from their insurance policies.

The New York Times first reported about the talks between Allianz and the teams on Sept. 1 and provided details of the company’s history Wednesday. Mark Lamping, the president of the teams’ joint venture, New Meadowlands Stadium, informed Allianz on Friday morning that the discussions were over.

Allianz Drops Bid for Naming Rights....

Giants and Jets fans join uproar over stadium naming rights bid by firm with Holocaust ties

BY OREN YANIV
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Football fans and Jewish groups are outraged over the prospect of a new Giants and Jets stadium being named for German insurer Allianz because of its Nazi ties in World War II.

The company insured the Auschwitz death camp and had a chief executive serving in Hitler's cabinet. The company is on the short list of those vying to slap their name on the Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey via a lucrative sponsorship deal.

The possibility of what some saw as a former Third Reich enabler getting its name on their ballpark has some Big Blue and Gang Green fans vowing boycott.

"I think it's terrible, but that's the mighty dollar," Giants fan Keith Hayes, 33, said of the name.

"It would be an insult," said Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "It's putting their name in lights for generations to come."

Debate over Allianz is also heating up the Net and is the talk of sports radio.

A season-ticket holder who posted under the name xxvnyg80 in a Giants Internet forum said he wrote team owner John Mara, begging him to sack the idea.

Allianz would reportedly pay $20 million to $30 million per year for the naming rights of the $1.3 billion stadium, which is to open in 2010.

During the Holocaust, the same company refused to pay off life insurance stipends to Jews and sent their policies' proceeds to the Nazis instead, Holocaust historians have written.

Allianz, which employs 11,000 people in the U.S. and sponsors golf and racing events, has acknowledged its shameful past and has shelled out millions in restitution.

Giants and Jets fans join uproar over stadium naming rights bid by firm with Holocaust ties....