HOUSTON -- The Houston Astros baseball team said last week it will pay Enron Corp. $2.1 million to regain the right to negotiate a new name for the team's stadium, which has been called Enron Field since 1999.
filed for Chapter 11 protection in November.
Drayton McLane, owner of the Astros, is president and chief executive officer of McLane Group, a family holding company for a variety of companies connected with the food industry, including snack manufacturing, soft-drink marketing, online grocery shopping, industrial and commercial plastic bag manufacturing, and export services.
"After lengthy negotiations, we felt it was important to pay this amount of money and move forward," McLane said here last week. "We sympathize with [Enron], but we saw this as something that was going to go on and on for months or for years. It wasn't going to be a positive picture."
McLane hopes to rename the stadium within two months. Until then, the field will be called Astros Field.
