Do Jackson Mourners Buy Office Supplies?

In the last few months, between the NBA finals and the Michael Jackson memorial service, the Staples Center in Los Angeles received millions of mentions, tweets, articles and praise for the facility.
The Staples Center opened in 1998 at the cost of $375 million and has been the venue for thousands of concerts and events.
Eleven years after it's opening, the Staples Center is now a household name across the world because of the Jackson memorial. It begs the question, "Was buying the naming rights to the facility a smart decision for Staples?"
Buying the naming rights or sponsorship for a facility, event, or product is a tricky business. Many consider it to be a form of advertising, but I believe any kind of sponsorship is simply marketing.
If a company is considering buying naming rights or becoming a sponsor, consider the relationship between the audience and the company's product. If the audience and the product are not a natural fit, there won't be immediate results from the sponsorship. Instead, the company should view the sponsorship simply as an opportunity to gain name recognition.
Be very clear on expectations. If the company wants immediate impact on revenue, sales, or the bottom line they should be advertising, in addition to the marketing.
Has 11 years of events the Staples Center had an impact on Staples' bottom line? I dare say that I doubt Staples has sold one additional box of paperclips because it has its name on a building. I doubt the audience attending the Grammys or Wrestlemania level the Staples Center thinking they'd rather go to Staples than Office Depot the next time they need office supplies.
Two examples of what I consider to be smart choices in buying naming rights are Busch Stadium and Coors Field. In these two situations, the corporations are a natural fit with the audience attending the ballgames and it's a better pairing. In these cases, I suspect that the beverage companies can pinpoint an immediate impact on their sales charts the years the stadium and ballpark were opened.
It's always smart to take a close look at audience and expectations before investing in sponsorships and naming rights.