Naming Rights - Other Examples

Other Examples

While the highest prices have traditionally been paid for stadium rights, many companies and individuals have found that selling their naming rights can be an important consideration in funding their business. In the last few years many new categories have opened up, such as the selling of the rights to name a new monkey species for $650,000.

Naming rights to public transit stations have been sold in Las Vegas and Philadelphia. Such sales have been contemplated in New York and Boston, and ruled out in San Francisco. A sponsorship for the MBTA's State Street station by Citizens Bank lasted from 1997 to 2000. In Tampa, naming rights for both streetcar stations and rolling stock are available.

Naming rights also extend outside stadiums in the realm of sports; in college football, all of the Division I bowl games have either modified or abandoned their traditional names in favor of title sponsors. While most include the traditional name in some form (e.g. Discover Orange Bowl, The Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio), there have been bowl games that have totally eliminated their traditional name in favor of solely using a corporate sponsor's name in an effort to dissuade fans from using a generic name (for instance, the former Citrus Bowl is now known as the Capital One Bowl and the former Peach Bowl is known as the Chick-Fil-A Bowl), a move that generally is treated with consternation from fans. Team names have occasionally been sold to corporate sponsors as well (such as the New York Red Bulls), but this is generally rare in the United States and more common in other parts of the world.

During the 1980s, sanctioned auto races in NASCAR and IndyCar began to abandon their traditional names in favor of exclusive sponsor names. The trend expanded rapidly in NASCAR such that in 1991, all 29 races in the Winston Cup Series featured sponsor names (including the Daytona 500, which was titled the Daytona 500 by STP), with little or no reference to the original names. As of the 2000s, very few exceptions remain in NASCAR, and typically races without sponsor names only lack them because a suitable sponsor could not be secured in enough time. IndyCar follows suit, with most races (except the very traditional Indianapolis 500) embracing title sponsorship.

Television and radio series, especially in the early days of each medium, frequently sold the naming rights to their programs to sponsors, most of whom bankrolled the program. This form of sponsorship fell out of favor in the late 1950s.