The Bengals play their first regular-season game Sunday afternoon against the Ravens, and it will be interesting to see how the CBS announcer crew refers to the team’s No. 1 receiver. I’m referring of course to Chad Ocho Cinco. No, not Johnson, Ocho Cinco. That is his legal name now. That is what it presumably says on his TV Guide subscription. Ocho Cinco. Yet no one in the mainstream media is calling him by that, insisting instead to keep calling him Chad Johnson. This stubbornness could ultimately cost No. 85 millions of marketing dollars, something that I cannot idly sit by and agree with.

Let’s look past the fact that this policy is completely hypocritical. In the NFL already, you have Maurice Jones-Drew, who added Jones to his last name after his grandfather passed away several years ago. Yet broadcasters uniformly cite his full last name after he makes a spectacular 25-yard touchdown run. It happens all the time with female athletes: Gold Medalist Misty May added Treanor to her name after getting married, and Dottie Pepper competed on the LPGA as Dottie Mochrie for several years after she got married.

Oh yeah, that’s right, there’s nothing outwardly associated with those examples of changing one’s name merely for a financial gain. Is Chad’s new last name cheesy? Without question. Does it make a mockery of any number of norms in society? Yes. Is it giving Spanish teachers across the country heartburn after they tell students Ocho Cinco does not actually translate to 85? You betcha. But it IS his name, and it should be used. And if it helps him sell a few million new jerseys, and opens up several new sponsorship avenues, more power to him.

Think about the marketing possibilities out there for him if his new last name is embraced: Chad teaching kids about the new Spanish-language Rosetta Stone program. Chad selling families Old El Paso taco kits. Chad promoting Delta’s new nonstop Miami-to-Madrid flight. And after his playing days, can’t you just see a commercial with Ocho Cinco on the Acapulco sand selling ice cold Corona?

Yes, the concern is that someone may follow up and change his name to a completely corporate name, and no, I don’t want someone named Nike Budweiser to be the starting running back for my Miami Dolphins. (Although if he’s better than Ricky, I’m willing to listen.) But we’ve already come close to this line before without any getting their noses bent out of shape: Richard Hamilton DID put his hair in the pattern of a tire for a five-figure fee and Rasheed Wallace HAS said he would get a corporate logo tattooed on him for the right price (Must be something in the water in Detroit).

The point is, the media should not be deciding for us what we should call No. 85. That’s his decision, and the paperwork says that Johnson is old news. Besides, he’s the one that has to live with telemarketers calling his house at 7:30 on a Saturday morning looking for Mr. Ocho Cinco now.