Marriott Corp passes on Stadium name (Reege is so right, but 'final' is wrong)
USA Today 14Nov99 B4
By Larry King

In his weekly USA Today column, Larry King notes that the Marriott Corp., run by LDS Church member Bill Marriott Jr. and founded by his father, passed on the opportunity to have the name for Jack Kent Cooke stadium, home to the NFL's Washington Redskins football team. Before he passed away, Cooke, who owned the Redskins and built the stadium, offered Marriott the right to hame the building for $2 million a year for 30 years.

However, the Marriott Corp. declined. Currently, only one sporting events center holds the Marriott name, BYU's Marriott Center, for which the company paid a one-time fee of $1 million.

The right to name the Redskins' stadium has now been sold, however. Federal Express purchased the rights for $7.6 million a year for 27 years, considerably more than the deal that Cooke offered the Marriott Corp. The stadium that could have been Marriott Field will be known as FedEx Field.