Hop on board Universal Studios Hollywood Red Line. Take the Snapchat/Santa Monica Expo Line. Or ride the Blue Line to the Staples/LA Live! Station.

These are some of the fictional names for rail, bus lines and transit stations made entirely possible by a new advertising policy adopted by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) governing board last week.

The Corporate Sponsorship/Naming Rights Program was approved by the board, with Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin and county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl voting in opposition. A marketing company could be hired by early next year to entertain offers and assign prices for naming rights of hundreds of Metro assets.

In short, Metro is looking to make millions of dollars a year by allowing institutions such as colleges and medical centers as well as corporations to rename a rail line, bus line, station or building by stamping their name and logo all over the facility, across station signs and locator graphics as well as digital incarnations such as Google maps or other online directional services.

“What we are looking at are all stations, all lines,” explained Glen Becerra, Metro deputy executive officer for communications and marketing. “So if you have a rail line like the Gold Line or the Purple Line, one of those assets could be considered (for corporate renaming).”

Metro, which just won approval of a tax measure that will generate $121 billion in the next 40 years, put out an all-hands-on-deck search for more revenues earlier this year called the Risk Allocation Matrix. Basically, CEO Phil Washington wanted each department to either cut costs or find additional revenue.

The staff report calls the revenue from selling corporate naming rights “a prudent means of maximizing the value of the agency’s capital investments and assets.”

Kuehl, who has objected repeatedly at committee meetings and at the governing board meeting, believes the policy is wrong, offensive and may place the agency in the middle of a constitutional court battle. At a board meeting on Dec. 1, Kuehl further called the policy “inappropriate.”

“It is all about products, advertising and nothing but making money no matter what,” she said Wednesday. “I think the commercialization of everything has really gone too far.”

The naming of stadiums is the most common — and most lucrative — example of naming rights today.

Such deals can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Marketers know that their clients’ brand will be seen by millions of fans, or in this case by train and bus riders, and also viewed on TV and various Internet and social media platforms that make such deals worth the cost.

“I’m happy they are doing this,” said Professor Kenneth Merchant, who taught a course on accountancy ethics at the Leventhal School of Accounting, part of the Marshall School at USC. “I think it is a clever idea.”

Ira Kalb, a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business, in an email wrote the transit agency could lessen its reliance on fares and taxes by using private sponsorship dollars to augment its operations budget.

Becerra happily points to a deal made by University of California, San Diego with the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. The La Jolla-based public university signed a 30-year deal for more than $30 million to rename the MTS Blue Line, “The University of California San Diego Blue Line.”

Becerra said the San Diego transit system created the right balance by not removing the original name. “It maintains the familiarity of the system and adds corporate identity into it,” he said.

He suggested that the Pico Station south of downtown Los Angeles, with stops for both the Metro Blue and Expo lines, could be renamed the “Pico Station at LA Live!” or something with Staples Center in the name. “That would be a win-win,” he said. Other companies, such as the social media company Snapchat, which is building a huge presence in Santa Monica, may want to get in on the naming game on the new Expo Line.

Historical landmarks, such as the art deco-style Union Station owned by Metro, most likely would be off limits to say, renaming it the Coca-Cola Station or any other rename, he said. All renaming proposals would need approval of the governing board, while smaller sponsorships worth $500,000 or less would not, according to the policy.

But turning down an unwelcome proposal would place Metro and its board into a First Amendment fight, Kuehl warned.

“If the board turns down somebody, you might violate the First Amendment,” she said.

Merchant said the only danger is giving naming rights to an organization that later commits a crime or acts unethically. One example is Enron Field in Houston, which was changed after the company’s legal troubles became headline news. Later, the naming rights were sold by the owner of the Astros to Minute Maid, a division of Coca-Cola.

“We want to make sure we vet these organizations carefully,” Becerra said.

Metro would not sell naming rights to businesses associated with alcohol and tobacco, adult entertainment, arms/guns and weapons, political parties and religious groups, he added.