Thursday, July 9, 2009

MJ's midas touch

The King of Pop may be dead but it seems not everyone was crying too hard for Michael Jackson when he was laid to rest on Tuesday night.

The Staples Center played host to the memorial / tribute service aired all around the world to millions and talked about, reported about, and social media-ed about for days afterwards. And if that wasn't enough, Forbes points out that the service got underway half an hour late leaving millions watching as cameras lingered on the oversized sign which read 'Staples'.

The company paid $116 million in 1999 for the 20-year naming rights to the arena and according to Forbes it "got a raging bargain for the naming rights there."

Let's put this to the test shall we? Go around the office and ask a handful of colleagues to, without thinking for too long, name where the MJ memorial service was held. We scored two out four correct answers on our end.

Reports out of the US say some 31.1 million people in the United States watched the Michael Jackson memorial on television, with millions more catching video streams on their computers.



How did it compare to other events? President Barack Obama's inauguration in January was seen by 38 million people on TV, and the American Idol finale in May had 28.9 million viewers.

Jackson's family wont be too happy about the Staples Centre cashing in on MJ's star power -- then again they might be too busy figthing each other for the rights to the Memorial DVDs to even notice.