Chelsea to Consider Joining the Stadium Naming Rights Surrender
This week saw the news that Chelsea have joined Newcastle United in openly stating that they are considering selling the naming rights to one of England’s most established stadiums.
Opening myself to accusations of being overdramatic I believe that if today’s announcement to tinker with the name of Stamford Bridge for commercial rights goes ahead it will be one of the biggest events in the clubs history.
My initial reaction to the announcement was one of anger, frustration and down right disbelief that Chelsea were considering becoming the next club to sell off a chunk of the clubs heritage in pursuit of commercial success. As those of you who have read my writing before may be aware I have regularly written about the mixed blessings of the commercialism of football and how in many regards it has sucked the heart from the game. On many levels I believe that the selling of naming rights of old established stadiums follows the mantra of selling football down the river for a few bucks.
This however is where the problem lies, for a club like Chelsea the naming rights of Stamford Bridge are worth more than just small change and the more I consider both the pros and cons of the issue you can see why clubs are willing to risk angering fans and consider such landmark decisions.
Ron Gourlay the Chelsea Chief Executive justifies the decision by claiming that a failure by the club to take advantage of this opportunity would affect the clubs ability to compete:
“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.”
“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.”
Chelsea have stated for many years since the Abramovich takeover that break-even is the objective and with a huge wage bill to cover all possible revenue streams will be considered by the board and some would argue the potential revenue would be too much to turn down.
Interestingly Chelsea’s press release did promise the intention to keep the Stamford Bridge in the stadium name but I fail to see any name suggestions that will give the potential sponsor the maximum namecheck possible as well as keeping the fans happy and how a true compromise could be reached.
Generally the principal in English football has been mainly for new build stadiums to sell stadium naming rights notable examples include the Arsenal and Bolton,Coventry, Wigan and Reading. This practise is generally seen as more acceptable as there is not the history attached to a previous stadium name some of which such as Chelsea’s come with over 100 years of history attached.
This leads us onto the most interesting part of the official press release in acknowledging the importance of fans what will the reaction of the Chelsea fans be?
There are already numerous facebook groups denouning today’s announcement and I cannot expect the fan in the stand to take this lying down, fans understand that in the modern game money is a factor but at what point does this stop? After the Game 39, television and naming rights fiascos i cannot believe that it will be long before the latest controversial money making scheme threatens to errode our game further.
The arguments of money v tradition/credibility/respect will rumble on for as long as football continues to expand and I expect that this topic will be on the minds of Chelsea fans for the weeks and months to come.
The fans must be wondering for how long they will turn on Soccer Saturday and be able to hear Jeff Stelling utter the phrase ‘now over to Stamford Bridge’ unedited without a commerciallly motivated tagline?
Written by Kristian Downer, the editor of http://www.echelseafc.com.
I remember there being uproar when Arsenal were going to sell the naming rights…does anyone now get offended when their stadium is referred to as the Emirates stadium?
It is however another example of English football selling it’s soul. As a Liverpool fan, I hope we get a new stadium soon but have no doubt that the naming rights sold too…please God don’t let it be the Carlsberg stadium!
Come on, it’s not that big a deal. WE all walk around with SAMSUNG stuck to our chest, how bad can it be to occasionally refer to the ground as Samsung @ Stamford Bridge or whatnot? For the reward of £10 million per year, I’d name one of my children Samsung!
Seriously there’s no harm in it.
I personally don’t have a problem with it. It’s an inevitable consequence of us being one of the leading clubs in the world and would increase the possibilities of us maintaining that staaus and moving us towards self sufficiency and not relying on the owner. I mean we are probably talking millions of pound per annum here. s long as the Bridge is still in the title I see it as a good money making opportunity. The ‘namer’ is likely to be blue chip after all. It’s not going to be the Walls Sausage Stamford Bridge Stadium is it?
Good article Kris, it’s a controversial subject. I really dont like the idea of it, and I think we have to fight at every opportunity against the continuing commercialization of the game. Nobody wants a “Dick’s Sporting Goods @ Stamford Bridge” or “Pizza Hut Park”
even though they change the name of stamford bridge, it will always be stamford bridge to me… and we still get £10 million per year…. come on
Stamford bridge is a massive part of the history of the club and we can’t just throw that away for a few quid. I mean we’re owned by one of the richest men in the world. We aren’t exactly in need of the money.
I don’t think we need it too much, but if its really something like 100 million, then as long as the sponsor’s name isn’t completely shitty, im okay with it. But it must be completely different for the match going folks, who I believe would never stand for such things.
Hope the bridge will still be appended on the name, fine then but the expansion is necessary and my one VIP seat there.