Top Menu

New for 2010: Digital Domain Park

The spring home of the New York Mets and regular-season home of the St. Lucie Mets has a new name after the sale of naming rights.

Digital Domain Park, the spring home of the New York Mets and regular-season home of the St. Lucie Mets (High Class A; Florida State League), has a new name after the sale of naming rights.

The deal, announced today by the Mets, came after Core Communities, which held the naming rights for the former Tradition Field to promote a local housing development, defaulted on its payments earlier this month.

Digital Domain Holdings Corporation, which includes Digital Domain, an Academy Award winning visual effects production studio in Venice, Cal., bought the rights to the ballpark as part of a larger deal with the Mets. Digital Domain has promised 500 jobs for Port St. Lucie in an economic-development deal yielding $51.8 in state and local funding for the firm. To announce the company's presence, Digital Domain signed a deal that expires on Dec. 31, 2018; the firm will pay $75,000 this year, $90,000 in 2011 and $100,000 in 2012, with further increase pegged to the Consumer Price Index.

Digital Domain officials say the deal goes beyond the spring-training marketing. From the press release:

Digital Domain's marketing relationship will also extend to New York and Citi Field where the company will have programming on CitiVision and interactive kiosks around the ballpark on select dates that showcase its award-winning visual effects.

Digital Domain, a pioneer in visual works for feature films and advertising production, will work with the Mets to use digital imagery to enhance the fan experience in Port St. Lucie and New York.

Digital Domain will receive extensive branding inside and outside the Mets' 100-acre Florida facility, home of the St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League and Gulf Coast Mets of the Gulf Coast League. It includes prominent locations at the entrance to the complex, on the exterior façade and at each fan entrance.

The announcement of its partnership with the Mets builds upon Digital Domain Holdings' commitment to the community, which includes the planned opening of a 150,000 square foot digital production studio in Port St. Lucie. The studio, which is planned to result in more than 500 jobs, will focus on the creation of original content and digital imagery for animated feature films, video games and military simulation.

"A marketing alliance with the Mets represents a wonderful extension of our obvious commitment to community outreach," said John Textor, Chairman of Digital Domain Holdings. "We are fully focused on education and inspiring kids to dream. While only a few children may become professional ballplayers, many more can benefit by embracing our digital age."

"We view our new partnership with Digital Domain Holdings as revolutionary for our organization, allowing us to work with some of the most creative and innovative minds in entertainment to develop new ways to engage our fans in Florida and New York," said Dave Howard, Executive Vice President, Business Operations, New York Mets.

Founded in 1993, Digital Domain has built a legacy of achievement, listing Titanic, Apollo13, The Day After Tomorrow and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End among its 75 plus film credits. Also a creative giant in advertising, Digital Domain has created some of the world's most memorable television commercial spots. The studio works with the industry's top directors and producers and is continually pushing into new territory, being recognized for its pioneering work in photo-real digital humans and productions that bring the worlds of movies, games, advertising and the web closer together.

Digital Domain earned a 2009 Academy Award for achievement in visual effects for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and recently completed visual effects for Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, 2012, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Star Trek. For more information, visit www.digitaldomain.com

Digital Domain Park has been the spring home of the Mets since 1988, when the team moved from St. Pete's Al Lang Field. It was first known as Thomas J. White Stadium.

Share your news with the baseball community. Send it to us at editors@augustpublications.com.

Subscribers to the weekly Ballpark Digest newsletter see articles before they're posted to the site. You can sign up for a free subscription at the Newsletter Signup Page.

Join Ballpark Digest on Facebook and on Twitter!