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Stadium naming rights. A winner for sponsorship or something to be avoided?

  • Writer: elysahubbard
    elysahubbard
  • Mar 19, 2018
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jun 12, 2020

The marketplace for stadium naming rights has grown significantly. Venue sponsorship is considered a cost-effective marketing practice and has become an important part of the ‘marketing mix’, expanding beyond sports stadiums to training centres, entertainment/arts arenas and healthcare facilities. Brands are beginning to understand the benefits of utilising naming rights investments, and the assets that come with them, as a chance to gain brand awareness, offer enhanced value to customers/ fans and increase brand consideration and market share.

Stadium sponsorship entitles the investor to venue titleage and branding on the inside and exterior of the stadium. Whilst this can offer brand awareness and ‘billions of positive impressions’ to sports fans (consumers) at moments of great passion, such ATL advertising is becoming less effective. Recent studies suggest that only 4% of millennials believe in advertising and that onsite signage has fallen from 2nd to 6th in priority of the most valuable sponsor asset (highlighted below). Therefore, it is important for venue sponsors to leverage other marketing tactics (assuming there is excess budget) to engage with consumers to gain a commercial advantage and stand out from the 55,000 marketing messages society is exposed to daily.

One of the most prized assets for a sports team is the name of their home ground. Therefore, engaging with fans and improving their match-day experience is imperative to ensuring they are not in opposition and aid the process of the new association. Whilst media outlets will be required to call the stadium by its new name, fan buy-in is necessary for brand loyalty.

Venue sponsorship is a significant revenue source that can help positively impact teams by offering funding to enhance training facilities/purchase new players (facilitating success) or improving the match-day experience. Funding can be used to refurbish/redevelop a stadium, eg. increase capacity (meaning more fans can attend games/ticket prices can be reduced), offer high-speed Wi-Fi/ big replay screens, additional branding opportunities, enhanced sponsor activation and hospitality areas (encouraging more partnership revenue), improved sightlines, better disabled access etc. Such renovations can also benefit the community through offering jobs and providing facilities that offer more than their original purpose (eg. multi-sport arenas) and that contribute to local life, eg. gyms/conference centres/concert venues/medcial centres. This would enhance the community’s perception of the brand and the cross-section of attendees, increasing sponsorship reach.

As well as title rights-acquisition, sponsors should also look to use rights-activation, through providing at-event ‘unique experiences’ to build personal relationships and positively influence the spectator’s feelings towards the brand. An example of this is O2’s customer reward scheme ‘Priority’. The following examples can reward customers enhancing brand favourability and potentially gain new customers:

  • Priority ticket access (discounted/ early access)

  • Discounted merchandise/ F&B

  • Priority entrance

  • Customer lounges (exclusivity and free/ subsidised F&B)

  • Money can’t buy opportunities, (stadium tours/ competitions to meet ambassadors)

  • Match-day seat upgrades to a ‘best seat in the house’

  • Vote for the Man of the Match

  • Big screen activations to engage fans/half-time entertainment

A sponsor may also choose to reward media to increase the likelihood that they promote the activation and refer to the stadium by the correct name.


In the rise of digital engagement and the sports fan ‘second screen culture’, sponsors would also benefit by activating around digital opportunities eg. improving live-streaming Wi-Fi access, enabling F&B to be ordered via an app, highlights/ interviews/ behind the scenes footage or photo filters (offering shareable content) to engage with customers/ fans. This would also offer access to data-collection, enabling the sponsor to learn more about the target-market and improve its ability to target campaigns to increase the likelihood of customer acquisition.


One of the most significant trends in the consumer purchasing process is the importance of responsible behaviour. Therefore it is important for the sponsor to tie in corporate responsibility to ensure public and media buy-in. An example is Etihad, who contribute to Manchester City FC community grassroots projects globally, offering increased value to communities and growing the ‘City Family’.


Climate change is currently viewed as one of the most serious global issues. A sponsor should also look to align its brand with ‘green credentials’, through introducing environmental improvement targets/ plans, eg. reducing the stadium’s carbon footprint/plastic usage and implementing waste-management procedures. This would grow brand warmth and build trust that the brand is committed to drive long-lasting positive change to the community.

To conclude, stadium sponsorship can offer brands a medium to achieve specific marketing objectives. Although onsite branding is important to enhance brand awareness, the real win for sponsors is utilising a 360-degree sponsorship approach, improving onsite customer experiences and creating positive brand associations. With only 20% of US sports fans reporting that they ‘personally benefit from a corporate named stadium’, this presents a huge opportunity for brands to align their positioning and rights to put their target market first, encouraging commercial success.


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