Naming Rights: More Bad than Good?
Posted: 7/8/2009 8:40:17 AM by
Jim Andrews | with 1 comments
The local news in Chicago has brought another example of how the negatives associated with venue naming rights deals often outweigh the positives. The Daily Herald newspaper reports that the village of Hoffman Estates, Ill. is in talks to take over the struggling Sears Centre arena.
Other media outlets quickly jumped on the story, with many using the company’s association with a venue that is having trouble meeting its financial commitments as the latest example of how the once proud retail giant has fallen.
For all of the bad news attached to the arena in the three years since it opened—mostly associated with minor league sports tenants who folded—there seems to have been little upside from an image standpoint for Sears in putting its name on the arena, which is located in the same development as the company’s corporate headquarters. Of course the company has probably achieved other objectives throughout the brief life of the deal (which is $1 million a year for 10 years and includes 25 percent ownership of the venue), but were any of them enough to overcome the mostly bad publicity for a company that can ill afford it?
It’s not as if Sears couldn’t have seen it coming. The arena was, and remains, a risky venture as a mid-size suburban outpost in a highly competitive market. I’d love to know the internal selection process that went into the decision to purchase the naming rights, assuming their actually was such a process.
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Filed under: venues, naming rights