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August 19, 2011
Met Life to pay $20m/year for Meadowlands naming rights?
The New York Post is reporting that the New York Jets' and Giants' year-old home will become MetLife Stadium under the terms of a naming-rights deal to be announced in the next week. According to the paper, MetLife's payments "could range as high as $20 million year for 20 years" — though of course, we've heard that before.
The main interest here is that, if true, it means that the market for naming rights has rebounded a bit after the economic collapse, which would seem to bode well for other teams (or cities) trying to raise funds by selling their stadium name. At least, if your city is the largest media market in the U.S., and your stadium has two NFL teams playing in it.
Wow. Given the TV deals college football conferences have recently been cutting, $20M would not be absurd. IF the Niners/Raiders stadium got close to that, the risk to city finances would be greatly diminished.
Posted by scbruin on August 22, 2011 10:04 AM
I'm surprised that the Meadowlands stadium didn't get as much in naming rights as Farmers Field in Los Angeles, which secured $700 million over 30 years, with that number rising to $1 billion if 2 NFL teams end up playing in that stadium.
And even if LA is only able to snag 1 NFL team for Farmers Field, that $700 million figure will still dwarf what the Meadowlands Stadium got in terms of total value ($700 million vs. $400 million) and annual value ($23.3 million vs. $20 million). If 2 teams end up playing in Farmers Field, the annual naming rights total gets bumped up to a whopping $33.3 million.
Does anyone have any guesses as to why a football stadium in the #2 market in the country would get more in naming rights than a football stadium in the #1 market with 2 long-term guaranteed tenants (Giants and Jets)?
Posted by pb on August 22, 2011 01:54 PM
Does anyone have any guesses as to why a football stadium in the #2 market in the country would get more in naming rights than a football stadium in the #1 market with 2 long-term guaranteed tenants (Giants and Jets)?
I would guess that before New Meadowlands opened (and if there weren't a financial crisis) the Giants/Jets could have gotten close to Farmers money.
But everyday after New Meadowlands opened the value of the naming rights drops. Folks are already just calling it the new stadium and while the announcers can be forced to use the new name, the people won't. It's almost like buying a "used" stadium. See also New Cowboys Stadium and Nationals Park.
Posted by James B. on August 23, 2011 05:47 PM
I'll second that thought, but also keep in mind that Farmers may be getting more than just naming rights to the stadium in that deal. Remember that Citibank was originally said to be putting up $20m a year for Mets naming rights, but then it turned out a lot of that was for ad boards and the like, and some of the cash was in-kind. So it's not always apples to apples.
Posted by Neil deMause on August 23, 2011 06:02 PM
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Posted by Golma Garcia on November 21, 2011 02:53 PM