Kentucky Sports: Pepsi Replaces Coke At Rupp Arena

Great news for Pepsi lovers, no so great for Coke aficionados like me. Pepsi is now the official soft drink supplier to Rupp Arena, and that means you can look forward to the overly-sweet soda and other Pepsi brands being your beverage, if you opt for a soft drink.

Of course, the SEC still forbids alcohol, so if you don't like Pepsi's offerings, you're going to have to do what I do and drink good old H2O. Better for you anyway, I suppose.

The one thing I sometimes think is really good for Kentucky is that we don't have our main arena and stadium named after some corporation. Louisville might as well be known as the KFC-Yum-Papa-Johns-University in Louisville, because that's what it's athletics program has become.

It isn't just them, though. Sooner or later, corporate naming will come to Kentucky and we'll have hyphenated arenas and stadiums selling Pepsi products and Nike apparel, and we'll all dutifully buy them and tell ourselves that it's just the way things are. And we'll be mostly right.

Still, I yearn for the days when the corporate logos and brand names weren't constantly beaten into our psyche from the moment we reach the venue until we finally pass beyond the range of the flashing neon. Of course, then we get to enjoy the Makers Mark billboards on the way home to drink our bourbon and Coke Pepsi nightcap and take off our Nike logo wear to get into our Corona pajamas and retire.

Yes, I know I don't drink bourbon with anything but an occasional splash of water, but with all the official sponsors of everything imaginable (when they come for your pajamas, you know you're done), can it really be long before they start offering to improve our homes as long as we put a sign on the roof?

Hey Budweiser! If you're offering, I'm listening.