Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Name Game: High School Stadium Naming Rights and Their Impact on the
Eric P. Butcher
Introduction
High school athletic programs, and the athletic directors tasked with overseeing
them, have increasingly found themselves having to do less with more. Athletic budgets
are being cut throughout the United States, forcing those in charge to come up with
creative ways to fund essential expenses, repairs, and needed upgrades to facilities.
School districts are turning more and more to corporate funding to solve their
budget problems. Although not a new phenomenon, with schools employing scoreboard
and baseball wall advertising to fund the construction of these projects for years, districts
are turning to the sale of naming rights for current and new stadium and arena
construction projects.
While this seems like a logical evolution, especially considering the growing
Review of Literature
An increasing number of public school districts throughout the United States are
turning to corporate funding to solve their budget crises, particularly when it comes to
athletics. With widespread documentation that property tax burdens have shifted away
from businesses to individual homeowners over the past two decades, we might ask why
corporations have not been spending more on public schools all along as members of
society, not in return for the opportunity to promote themselves (Molnar, 2002).
which schools are becoming subsumed in the corporate branding of virtually every public
space. This trend emerged in the 2001-2002 survey of commercialism in schools by the
Arizona State University. The study, conducted annually since 1998, searches media
(Molnar, 2002).
According to McCollum (2005), the Sweetwater Union High School District near
San Diego, California, has signed sponsorship contracts with nearly 300 national and
local businesses. The money has helped launch freshman sport teams at 12 high schools
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and has helped start intramural programs at 12 middle schools. In all, there has been a
248 percent increase in corporate sponsorship of schools since the early 1990s.
The strategy makes business sense, McCollum (2005) added. If parents, students,
and teachers see that a supermarket or shoe company is helping them out, theyre more
likely to patronize that retailer or manufacturer. And such sponsorships dont need to
affect the quality of learning. Besides, we deal with marketing from TV, radio, magazines,
and billboards every day. The messages bounce off most of us like beach balls. Why
shouldnt schools take advantage of this income source if no harm comes of it?
throughout the country, where extracurricular budget money is continually being cut to
help make ends meet. The Dallas Independent School District, for example, is
considering naming rights as an option to relieve the stress of a $77 million budget cut.
You can choose to sell that stuff or give it away, said Dallas ISD trustee Mike
Morath in a Haag (2011) story for The Dallas Morning News. If we can bring in external
resources to help cover the operating costs of the school district and bring in additional
According to Haag (2011), the results of public school districts attempts to seek
private funding appear mixed. Humble Independent School District near Houston, Texas,
recently signed a 10-year contract worth $350,000 to rename its football stadium
nestled in a very affluent part of Dallas, Texas, has had no takers on its offer to rename
Highlander Stadium. (The price: $10 million.) The district is now considering the option
of lowering the price tag and extending the deal to multiple years.
RUNNING HEAD: The Name Game 5
The Market for High-School Facility Naming Rights
The sale of sport facility names in the United States began in 1973 when Rich
Products Corporation paid $1.5 million for the rights to the home of the Buffalo Bills for
the next 25 years. While companies may have many reasons for purchasing naming rights,
some of the more important reasons include the pursuit of community citizenship and
goodwill, and to increase sales and market share (DeSchriver & Jensen, 2003)
At the local level, companies benefit from naming a facility for several reasons.
People in the area may take a more positive view of a corporation if they believe the firm
played a key role in providing a state-of-the-art facility for the region (DeSchriver &
Jensen, 2003). When applying this theory to the concept of selling naming rights at the
high school level (obviously on a smaller scale), the benefit of community goodwill can
be a big draw especially as high school stadiums continue to grow and evolve. For
example, the Allen Independent School District in Allen, Texas, opened a new 18,000-
seat stadium for the 2012 season, costing taxpayers in the district more than $60 million.
While the district did not sell naming rights to the stadium, the option could be a viable
one for future revenue generation; Allen High School has one of the largest and most
successful athletics programs in the state, which would make naming rights at the
In some cases, the benefits to the community (and student athletes) can far
outweigh the benefits received by the company purchasing the naming rights. In 2011,
shoe company New Balance paid $500,000 for naming rights to Gloucester High
Schools historic Newell Stadium, which first opened in 1936 and had deteriorated badly
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in recent years. The money generated will help fund a $3.5 million renovation project at
the stadium. Newell Stadiums poor condition, including wide pits in the track and
warped, swaying stands, has severely limited its use, according to a press release from
the Gloucester Fishermen Athletic Association. The bathroom building was condemned
and the track team has not held a home meet in six years because the track is unsafe for
runners. Although it is next to Gloucester High School, none of the schools physical
education classes use the field. An analysis by the City of Gloucester estimated that 1,000
more children per year will be able to use the field when it is rebuilt (Gloucester
Consequently, the market for high school facility naming rights would seemingly
fluctuate depending on the size of the community and school itself which in turn
presents the same problem faced by professional sport teams in smaller markets. Firms
that buy naming rights for a facility in a populated area must pay more because they are
effectively paying for additional advertising that they would not receive from a facility in
a less populated area. These results seem to be consistent with the existing literature on
facility naming rights as many authors have suggested that the prime motivation for
Although the financial benefits of selling naming rights are obvious, there are a
number of potential negative consequences that can arise from the partnership. While
these problems are challenging for any organization, they are magnified tremendously
RUNNING HEAD: The Name Game 7
when dealing with public school districts and the student athletes they are responsible
for.
First, there is the possibility that the company purchasing the naming rights may
not be able to hold up its end of the bargain. Firms that purchased naming rights for the
stadia of the Baltimore Ravens (PSI Net), the St. Louis Rams (Trans-World Airlines), the
St. Louis Blues (Savvis), and the Carolina Panthers (National Car Rental) went bankrupt
While these examples demonstrate this problem on a larger scale, it is still a very
real possibility that has to be considered by school districts when seeking potential buyers
for naming rights. Relying too heavily on private funding could be catastrophic to a
school district if the company providing the funding suddenly ceases to exist.
The image of the company interested in purchasing naming rights must also be
heavily weighed. Some of the companies that professional sport teams do business with
would be off limits to a school district seeking private funding through naming rights.
There could never be a Coors Field or Red Bull Arena on a high school campus, simply
because of the nature of the companies involved. However, there is also the possibility
that the company purchasing the naming rights gets caught up in a public relations
Consider the case of the Houston Astros and Enron, albeit on a professional sport
level. Prior to its bankruptcy in 2001, Enron employed more than 21,000 people and was
one of the worlds leading energy providers. It was named Americas Most Innovative
Company by Fortune magazine for six years in a row. However, the company collapsed
in 2001 and filed the largest bankruptcy in American history. The bankruptcy put 4,500
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Houston-area residents out of work and wiped out most of the savings in employee
pensions. The Enron name became synonymous with unethical behavior, shame and
failure. The continued use of the name Enron Field stigmatized the Astros (Jensen &
Butler, 2007).
While a case such as this should not deter school districts from seeking out
naming rights agreements with private companies, it should provide enough evidence to
convince school district officials to take precautions to safeguard against being caught up
in a similar scenario.
Antitrust considerations
exclusivity is an extension of the larger legal concern about how advertising, both as a
form of communication and a factor in the economic marketplace of goods and services,
fits within the protection of the First Amendment. Advertising is surely the exercise of
free speech, but it also is a powerful economic tool, one capable of creating a regulatory
excesses of capitalism.
stock only their products in vending machines on district campuses and in concession
stands for sporting events. Although high school stadium naming rights deals could
include exclusivity contracts, which could increase the value of such deals, where should
RUNNING HEAD: The Name Game 9
the line be drawn? Will there come a point when high school student athletes are
prohibited from wearing a certain brand of shoe because of a naming rights deal with
While the benefits to the sponsoring corporation and the sports property itself are
immense, the value of this system to the consumer remains in serious question. These
sponsorship agreements are confined to just those mega-corporations with the finances to
purchase such an agreement, at least for the premier sports properties. But these deals
also restrict consumer exposure to, and ultimately choice of, brands while at the event.
And the price, in most instances, reflects that lack of competition. There is little doubt
that these exclusivity provisions are anticompetitive, as they are intentionally designed to
limit consumers choices to the sponsors brands (Fortunato & Richards, 2007).
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option for funding upgrades and the construction of new facilities especially
considering the current state of state and federal government funding of public education.
School districts nationwide have had to cut budgets and eliminate programs to make ends
meet, and with no clear solution in sight, district officials continue to explore a multitude
However, there are a number of important issues that must be considered when
exploring the possibility of selling naming rights to a private company. Potential buyers
must fit with the image of the school district, and precautions must be taken (such as
ethics clauses) to ensure the agreement is minimally damaging should the company
Theres also the possibility of over-commercializing the school district with too
much advertising. Schools dont want to look like NASCAR, said Arrowhead
(Wisconsin) athletic director Kevin Flegner. That is usually something school boards
will say right away, We dont want all these different billboards. (Stewart, 2012).
School districts must balance all of these considerations when exploring the sale
of naming rights. Ultimately, what is best for the kids they are responsible for should
Bibliography
DeSchriver, T. D., & Jensen, P. E. (2003). What's in a Name? Price Variation in Sport
Fortunato, J. A., & Richards, J. (2007). Reconciling Sports Sponsorship Exclusivity with
Antitrust Law. Texas Review of Entertainment & Sports Law , 8 (33), 33-48.
Gloucester Fishermen Athletic Association. (2011). Retrieved November 17, 2012, from
Haag, M. (2011, July 5). Dallas ISD to consider selling naming rights at schools,
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20110705-
dallas-isd-to-consider-selling-naming-rights-at-schools-stadiums.ece
Jensen, R., & Butler, B. (2007, October). Is sport becoming too commercialised? The
Cavalcade , 18-19.
(2), 74-78.
Stewart, M. (2012, September 3). Naming rights trickle down to high school level.
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/preps/naming-rights-trickle-down-to-high-school-
level-tv6nn30-168421646.html