This week Bath City FC have launched a money raising initiative giving fans and businesses the opportunity to rename their ground for just £50. One of the highest placed part-time clubs in the English football pyramid currently sit in the relegation zone of the Blue Square Premier and like most clubs, money is very tight. They hope this idea will raise much needed funds (and not forgetting the inevitable publicity that it will bring) to ease a potential sticky situation that can be found in their profit and loss sheets.
In 2009 AFC Bournemouth saved themselves from administration with a similar draw asking punters to stump up £500 for the chance to rename their ground. It was a great success and added £50,000 to the clubs coffers saving them from the dreaded points deduction and possible liquidation.
This decade has seen many clubs in the UK change the name of their home ground to benefit from the money that corporations are willing to send their way for the privilege. Examples of this can be found at York City with the Kit Kat Crescent and of course the recent multimillion pound deal that Etihad have signed at Manchester City. There are also clubs who have relied on sponsorship to fund the construction of their new home such as the Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and the Britannia Stadium where Stoke City play their football.
In the United States they have taken naming rights to the next level. They have a grand total of 263 (and counting) sporting venues that have taken on the name of a corporation. Most of them are very standard however there are many comical ones such as the Whataburger Field baseball stadium in Texas and Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Colorado.
The practice of renaming venues in America can be dated back to 1912 with the Boston’s famous Fenway Park and is very common amongst all of their national sports generating a considerable amount of income. The highest amount paid for naming rights can be found in New York where the Citi Field and Barclays Center are situated. Both of these deals bring in $20m every single year and are expected to last for at least 20 years generating at least $400m over the lifetime of the contract – a crazy amount of income.
So what’s the big problem? Surely teams across the globe should be crying out for this ‘easy’ money where all they have to do is change a couple of signs and their letter headed paper? You would think that sports fans would be petitioning their clubs to launch a naming scheme for their club to help secure the long term financial stability of their team like AFC Bournemouth and Bath City have done. However, this is not the case.
Look at the situation at Newcastle United. St James Park, or the Sport Direct Arena, as it ‘should’ be called has caused such a stir with fan groups, ex –chairman and high profile supporters like Graeme Swann coming out to condemn the move. Even the Newcastle City Council “have expressed that they will offer no support to Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley over the changing of the name” and state “that the council officially agrees with the ‘overwhelming majority’ of supporters who believe this is the wrong decision”. Wow, some serious disapproval there.
As a Newcastle fan myself, I’m not that fussed. Of course ideally they would just leave it as it is but I consider myself a modern football fan, one that has moved on with the times that we live in. Naming rights have become part and parcel in the USA with powerhouse sporting franchises raking in cash from all areas and slowly we are seeing this trend sneak its way into Britain with clubs sacrificing history for a quick fix of the balance sheets.
Unfortunately we are in an age where money is everything to teams up and down the country. At the top end clubs like the two in Manchester, United and City, exploit every area of the globe to find potential fans and open up ways to increase their income. As a mid table(ish) club, if Newcastle can bridge the gap to the European places and bring in bigger and better players by selling of the name of the stadium then so be it. I’d much rather watch a solvent, successful team for my match day ticket than one who is struggling with the financial demands of the modern game but has kept a historical name on the front of the programme.
However Manda Rigby of Bath City made an interesting point in a recent interview over their name change and was quoted as saying:
"What we don't want to do is impose anything. We want to get the fans involved as much as possible and we thought this would be a good way to do that."
This is the point I think Mike Ashley and the rest of the board could have done better. They just did it with no consultation. So in a bid to help Mike & Co out I’ve come up with what they should of sent out to all fans before hand...
Dear NUFC fans,
I present you with 2 choices:
1. We’re going to change the name of St James Park to allow us to bring in additional revenue and push to bring European football back to where it belongs.
2. We’ll leave the name alone, sit in mid-table obscurity and watch our rivals overtake us as they bring in more cash than us by selling the name of their ground.
The choice is yours.
Cheers,
Mike Ashley.
I know which choice I would take.
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