Naming Rights - Stadium Naming

Stadium Naming

Stadium naming may have shifted in recent years to promoting corporate trade names, but in earlier decades is largely traced to the family names of company founders. Naming rights in North America may have been traced back to 1912 with the opening of Fenway Park in Boston. The stadium's owner had owned a realty company called "Fenway Realty", so the promotional value of the naming has been considered. Despite this, it is more widely believed to have begun in 1926 when William Wrigley, the chewing gum entrepreneur and owner of the Chicago Cubs, named his team's stadium "Wrigley Field." In 1953, Anheuser-Busch head and St. Louis Cardinals owner August Busch II proposed renaming Sportsman's Park, occupied by the Cardinals, "Budweiser Stadium". When this idea was rejected by Ford Frick, the Commissioner of Baseball at that time, Anheuser-Busch then proposed the title "Busch Stadium" after one of the company's founders. The name was readily approved, and Anheuser-Busch subsequently released a new product called "Busch Bavarian Beer" (now known as Busch Beer). The name would later be shifted to the Busch Memorial Stadium in 1966, shortened in the 1970s to "Busch Stadium" and remained the stadium's name until it closed in 2005. By that time, Major League Baseball's policy had changed – with Coors Field in Denver and Miller Park in Milwaukee going up in that span – and Anheuser-Busch (who retained the naming rights after selling the team) was able to use the same name for the Cardinals' new stadium which opened on April 4, 2006.

Another early example is when the New England Patriots of the National Football League sold the rights to name the stadium that they had constructed in Foxborough, Massachusetts in 1970–1971 to the Schaefer brewery.

The public reaction to this practice is mixed. Naming rights sold to new venues have largely been accepted, especially if the buyer has strong local connections to the area, such as the case of Rich Stadium in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, and Coors Field in Denver. Selling the naming rights to an already-existing venue has been notably less successful, as in the attempt to rename Candlestick Park in San Francisco to 3Com Park. The general public (and some media outlets) continued to call the facility what it had been known as for over three decades – Candlestick Park. After the agreement with 3Com expired, the rights were resold to Monster Cable, and the stadium was renamed Monster Park. San Francisco voters responded by passing an initiative (Proposition H) in the November 2004 elections that essentially stipulated the name must revert to Candlestick Park once the contract with Monster expired in 2008. The initiative proved largely ceremonial, however, and it was overturned by the passage of Proposition C in 2009 in response to desperate economic times. The naming rights to the park have yet to be resold.

A distinction, and potential source of contention, is whether a stadium has been financed in whole or in major part by public funds, and is owned by the municipality where the venue is located.

Sports stadiums with naming rights deals are not limited to the United States. "Named" stadiums can be found in countries including Australia, Japan, China, Finland, Canada, and Israel. The practice is widening in the United Kingdom; for instance the current stadium of Bolton Wanderers is the Reebok Stadium and Arsenal Football Club's new stadium for the 2006/2007 season is the Emirates Stadium, their previous ground being Highbury Stadium. In cricket, the most famous example is The Oval, home of Surrey County Cricket Club. It has had several sponsors over the years, and is currently known as "The Kia Oval", having originally been known as the "Kennington Oval", the district of London in which it is.

The record for the highest amount paid for naming rights belongs to Citi Field (opened in 2009) and Barclays Center (scheduled to open in 2012), both located in New York City. Each garnered deals of $20 million per year for at least 20 years, totaling $400 million.

The New Meadowlands Stadium (since named MetLife Stadium), shared home of the New York Giants and New York Jets in East Rutherford, New Jersey was expected to eclipse both deals, with experts estimated it would value $25–30 million annually.