<p>Yeah, it’s rather obscure: although I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that George F. Baker III died recently and apparently the rest of the Baker family doesn’t seem to care very much about the upkeep. The whole Baker Foundation seemed to be a much bigger deal a few years ago.</p>
<p>But that’s not the point. The question on the table is not whether HBS would only sell off naming rights in an obscure, obfuscated manner. The question on the table is whether HBS would sell off naming rights at all, and the fact is, they already did.</p>
<p>More importantly, the fact that HBS had already sold its naming rights, even in an obscure manners, means that it’s probably not much of a stretch that they would then sell in a quite overt manner. After all, it’s not that much more of a hurdle. Granted, it would take a huge amount of money. But, surely, they would do it. </p>
<p>And why not? Honestly, numerous buildings and, heck, even individual rooms at HBS have had naming rights sold. For example, not only do you have Baker Library (for, again, the Baker Foundation), but within the library you have the Bloomberg Center lobby. I wonder who that is named for? Morgan Hall is named after JP Morgan. The Rock Center (which used to be known as the Story Building), is named after venture capitalist Arthur Rock.</p>
<p>Hence, if HBS is going around selling naming rights to its buildings and even lobbies to buildings, and even sold the naming rights to HBS itself (just in an obscure way), I don’t see why it’s so unbelievable to think that HBS wouldn’t overtly sell full naming rights.</p>