In the news: Sports venue naming rights

An expensive but coveted marketing tool is the exclusive naming rights of sports venues, and companies of all industries take part in this name game. As mentioned in my last blog, “Do you bleed Blue,” Scottrade, Inc bought the exclusive naming rights to the formerly named Savvis Center in St. Louis. The new Scottrade Center is the home of the St. Louis Blues and St. Louis University Billikens (until their new on-campus venue is completed in March of 2008) as well as other special events.

In the 9/8 St. Louis Post Dispatch articleentitleded “Blues keep local ties in replacing Savvis name,” Blues and arena owner Dave Checketts discussed this deal with Scottrade,

“Because we are headquartered in New York, we had the opportunity to talk to a lot of national companies," Checketts said. "But I always wanted a St. Louis-based company, and that's what I'm most excited about."

This is an excellent marketing and PR tool in that it shows he is dedicated to the St. Louis community and wants keep money with Blues nation. Scottrade, Inc is a stock brokerage headquartered in West St. Louis County most known for internet advertising for discounted trades.

Naming rights to sports venues has been a marketing toolnumerousmeous years but the dollar figures in the contracts have grown since the 1990’s. For example, in 1999 the St. Louis Rams began playing in their new arena and Trans World Airlines bought the naming rights for $36.7 million for 20 years, or a little over $1.8 million per year. When TWA was bought out by American Airlines, AA opted not to assume the naming rights owned by TWA and the venue name was up for sale. In 2002, only 3 years after the original TWA contract, Edward Jones purchased the rights for 12 years at $31.8 million, or $2.65 million per year.

Due to enormous revenue potential available for venue owners, there are fewer non-corporate venues in sports today. Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, and Dodger Stadium are just a few of examples type of venue. The common theme in all is that each is over 40 years old and there is a lot of history associated with the venue and with the name.

Questions to ponder until my next post,

“Will the Yankees sell out and offer the naming rights of the new stadium to be completed in 2009?”

and if so,

“for how much?"