Football clubs selling the naming rights for stadia is not a new phenomenon.
In the Premier League already exists the AMEX Stadium, the King Power Stadium, the Emirates Stadium, the Etihad Stadium, and the Vitality Stadium, among others. For all but the latter, the stadium naming rights changes came after a move to a new venue, where the perceived shackles of tradition were removed.
The issue of stadium naming rights isn’t new for Newcastle United, either. Back in 2009, then under the ownership of Mike Ashley, the Magpies renamed their home sportsdirect.com@St James’ Park. What followed in 2011 was the renaming of the stadium as the Sports Direct Arena, with then managing director Derek Llambias talking up the value of such a move.
In a statement, Llambias explained: “Our aim for Newcastle United is to continue to deliver success for the fans and everyone associated with the club. We must make this club financially self-sufficient in order to deliver that success.
“To grow sustainably and allow us to invest in our future, we will need to rely increasingly heavily on commercial income. Stadium rebranding offers a lucrative way for clubs to secure significant additional income.”
It was a move that proved to be deeply unpopular, so much so that when Wonga.com acquired both the shirt sponsorship and stadium naming rights in 2012 they opted to revert back to the stadium being known as St James’ Park.
Things are different at Newcastle now. The acquisition of the club by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) at the end of 2021 ushered in a new era for the club, but despite being owned by one of the world’s richest sovereign wealth funds, the club is bound by what it can do in the transfer market due to the Premier League’s financial controls that exist, with the club having to engage in player trading to a significant extent on the final day of their financial year to ensure compliance with the League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
PSR, as well as the greater controls that now exist around associated party transactions, something that could have been a significant lever for Newcastle to pull to raise commercial revenues and ease PSR worries, means that the club have been unable to build on their qualification for the Champions League and were even faced with the prospect of losing stars such as Alexander Isak and Bruni Guimaraes due to financial controls in June.
But the stadium naming rights potential for St James’ Park remains untapped, with no such move as yet made by the PIF. But as economic pressures on football clubs continue to build, and the odds keep getting stacked higher against those wanting to bridge the gap between themselves and the so-called ‘big six’, will there ever be a time when it would be more palatable for fans, and just how valuable could it be?
In Spain, Barcelona were willing to risk wrath when they sold the naming rights for the Nou Camp to streaming giant Spotify. That deal could have been worth more had it not been for the fact that Barcelona had limited data on their fans, something that Spotify put a great deal of focus on and that damaged the overall value.
There is no doubt that Newcastle United could command an sizeable sum on a multi-year deal from a potential naming rights partner, potentially with links to the Middle East, given their status and at a time when the sport is increasingly globalised and reach extends into territories such as the US that now have a huge interest in the game of ‘soccer’, with the Premier League’s US TV deal making up 20% of all global broadcast revenue for the most recent cycle.
Tottenham Hotspur’s 2019 move to a new purpose-built stadium on the site of their old White Hart Lane ground saw them take residence on one of European football’s most state-of-the-art venues.
With a build that cost some £1.2bn plus, with £800m worth of debt still existing on the balance sheet as a result, the club looked into stadium naming rights early. Links with potential partners such as Google were mentioned but given Spurs chairman Daniel Levy’s notoriety for getting a good deal, the club are understood to be holding firm on what they believe the value of such a sponsorship space should be.
Levy has also previously talked about the potential value of not handing over stadium naming rights to a firm, instead keeping the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium name, something that could be impactful in growing markets, especially given that the stadium hosts NFL regular season games annually.
But the US market is not the UK market and the same kind of success can’t be assumed.
In 2019, financial firm SoFi acquired the naming rights to the home stadium of the Los Angeles Rams, and Los Angeles Chargers in a mammoth $600m-plus, 20-year deal. In 2021, Crypto.com paid $700m to take over the naming rights of what was once known as the Staples Center, the home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings. In 2024 the Los Angeles Clippers will open a new purpose-built arena in Inglewood, the rights for that have already been sold to Intuit for $500m.
A number of clubs have sold stadium naming rights, with Arsenal’s move away from Highbury seeing them enter into a long agreement with Emirates, while Manchester City has the Etihad Arena, Brentford has the Gtech Community Stadium, and Brighton & Hove Albion has the AMEX Stadium.
All were new builds, unbound from the traditions that stopped the selling of rights previously, while three of those four teams have alignment across major shirt sponsorship and stadium sponsorship, with Arsenal, Manchester City, and Brighton’s front-of-shirt sponsors the same as the stadium naming partner, limiting the dilution of rights and brand visibility.
Said Haddad: “For sponsors, you’ve got the 19 matches in the Premier League and then a domestic cup. There are no rights around the Champions League or Europa League.
