What happens when Web Companies Die?
An article about the 42,000 WebVan cup holders at PacBell Park in San Francisco.

From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/07/11/MN159427.DTL

What to do with 42,000 cup holders labeled with a company that just went bust?

That's the question confounding the San Francisco Giants with the demise of Webvan, the online grocery company that had its trademark plastered on every seat cup holder at Pac Bell Park.

Does the team scrape the labels off right away? Can it go looking for another advertiser?

"Our lawyers are looking at it," said Giants executive vice president Larry Baer.

In fact, Baer said the team has been working on it ever since it first got wind that Webvan was headed for the dot-com dumper.

Webvan had a three-year, "low-seven-figure" contract with the Giants for stadium advertising, Baer said -- which included the cup holders, as well as a couple of ballpark billboards.

And there's still one year to go.

Still, the idea of having a loser's logo splashed all over the park is something the image-conscious Giants would like to see end ASAP.

As for Herculean job of stripping off all those 42,000 Webvan labels?

"If we put them on -- we can take them off," says Baer.

Who knows, maybe the fans will want to take them home as souvenirs.