Ten years ago Newcastle’s St James’ Park got its name back when Wonga bought the naming rights of the stadium as part of their sponsorship deal and the “Sports Direct Arena” name was thankfully binned.
Now, with new owners at the helm, the club are looking at ways to maximise revenue streams for the club and stadium partnerships are high on the list of potential earners. The mere thought of this has Geordie spines tingling, especially after the disgusting farce that was the aforementioned Sports Direct Arena.
However, whereas that deal brought in nothing extra in terms of revenue and was clearly just a way for Mike Ashley to splash his gaudy signs all over the stadium, any potential partnership that results in a renaming of the stadium would be presented to the fans for comment before a final decision was made. That, of course, doesn’t mean that even if fans are opposed, a name change won’t still go ahead.
Would You Be Okay With A SJP Name Change If It Meant More Money For Transfers?
Yes. Bring on the cash
No. Leave SJP alone!
At the end of the day, PIF are an investment fund and that’s about growing wealth so if they see a way to do that, chances are they will take it.
What’s likely to happen is that a partnership deal will be agreed and fans will be consulted on the best way to word a potential stadium name change.
As much as it sticks in the throat a bit even contemplating calling St James’ Park anything else, the idea of the club being able to broker a multi-million-pound deal to change the name and ultimately navigate around FFP so we can bring in more top players has to be seen as a good one.
Tottenham are apparently in talks with Google over naming rights for their stadium and a £25m-a-year deal has been mooted. We’ll not get anywhere near that for St James’ Park I wouldn’t have thought, but PIF and Co are wily business people and they will definitely be able to maximise the income from any kind of partnership.