It seems the naming rights saga has caught fire among the English FA Premier League . On the back of Newcastle United's announcement that St. James' Park is to be known as the "sportsdirect.com @ St. James' Park", Chelsea's Chief Executive Ron Gourlay has now revealed that Chelsea are preparing to follow the lead by selling the naming rights for Stamford Bridge. Like Ashley and Co. at Newcastle, Gourlay is insisting that the associated brand will only be able to add to the name, rather than actually change the name of the stadium altogether. 'Stamford Bridge' would therefore be retained in the name along with the assocation with "a suitable blue-chip company."
"Retaining the heritage of the stadium is paramount to considering such a move but we think that is achievable and on that basis we would enter into discussions over naming rights with the right partner for Chelsea", Gourlay told Chelsea TV. "We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal". Could it be that scenes like the below are soon to be a thing of the past within the giants of the game? Surely Abramovich doesn't need the money as much as Chelsea need the identity of their stadium?
A sensitive issue indeed, but Gouray feels that the financial advantage of selling the rights is essential. "What we are not prepared to happen, and I am sure our fans will appreciate this, is allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate through either expanding the capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium and then invest that upside in their team or the club. Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive". In 2004, Emirates paid Arsenal £50million to acquire naming rights on their new Ashburton Grove stadium for 15 years, and Allianz is charged £4m every twelve months for Bayern Munich's ground to bear its name. In the USA, Citigroup pay £10m so for the new New York Mets baseball arena, now called Citi Field. Check out http://chelseafc.com for more information.
