Expect the unexpected for naming rights

DESERT MOUNTAIN: Arizona State’s football stadium was rebranded to Mountain America Stadium 65 years after it opened in Tempe. The credit union signed a $50-plus million naming rights deal in 2023. (Getty Images)

Brands urged to plan ahead for marketing strategies

PHOENIX, Arizona — Corey Mintz was caught off guard when he found out the Seattle Mariners had signed a deal with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe for naming rights to T-Mobile Park’s diamond club, a high-profile premium space situated behind home plate at the Major League Baseball stadium.

Mintz, senior experience designer and an associate principal with Populous, was responsible for creating the branding package for the club, which completed a refresh midway through the 2023 baseball season. 

The design crew thought it might be a bank, an automaker or a tech company. Instead, it was a regional Indian nation that acquired the rights, Mintz told the audience at the VenuesNow Conference during a panel session on naming rights trends for sports facilities. 

Oak View Group’s Jeff Campbell and drive21’s Warren Godridge were also part of the panel, moderated by Dan Griffis, president of OVG Global Partnerships.

For Populous, the situation in Seattle isn’t that uncommon, but architects must be prepared to pivot to a different sponsor after completing initial designs for a branded concept, Mintz said.

“We kind of scratched our heads, and that’s where you have to think about how to create authentic storytelling to drive that (premium) experience,” Mintz said. 

“With Muckleshoot, we had to listen to the nation,” he said. “Why are you doing this? We looked at ways for how to connect (Mariners history with) Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro with the tribe. It wasn’t the Muckleshoot casino, but the tribe itself trying to connect to a broader audience with its cultural heritage so people identify with it.”

That involved theming the diamond club around wood-carved canoe paddles, painted, specialized bats with tribal artwork and maps that show historical fishing villages with spears. 

“It was a great challenge that worked out well,” Mintz said. 

In general, the life cycle of sponsored destinations at arenas and stadiums is a fluid process for those spaces that shouldn’t go untouched over five to 10 years after the initial activation, according to Godridge, founder and CEO of drive21, an experiential design and marketing firm.

“They should be thinking about what they can change on an ongoing basis and getting buy-in from the brands and sponsors,” he said. “Here’s a five-year deal, but we’re going to want to do this in year one, do (something different) in year two and in year three, and you’re going to sell that deal. It might cost them a little bit more, but because it’s tied into the fan engagement, everyone gets so much more benefit out of it.”

Brands are constantly changing their marketing strategies, with a shelf life in place for each campaign. As a result, panelists said the sellers must ask the sponsors upfront about the length of relevancy for the company and to start thinking ahead of time for how to refresh the space and what it’s going to look like two to 10 years in the future, he said.

“Most companies don’t want to do these short-term ideas and have to change things up because it costs money to make major changes in these spaces,” Campbell said. 

“A lot of folks would want to stay within that three- to five-year (window) to develop some equity in that program to tell that story properly,” he said. “You don’t want to do the same campaigns (repeatedly). It’s not as transactional; it’s more about asking the question of ‘you’re in year four of your marketing campaign, is this thing going to last much longer?’”

For Arizona State University, Sun Devil Stadium was in year 65 at the time OVG brokered a naming rights deal with Mountain America in 2023 to rebrand the building for a school with 140,000 undergraduate students, among the biggest in the country. The 15-year deal with the Sandy, Utah, financial institution has a total value of more than $50 million.

Beyond the historic nature of the rebrand, Griffis said the deal itself stands out because, per OVG’s research, it’s one of only nine naming rights agreements for stadiums among the 67 schools that make the Power 4 conferences in college football. Many of those stadiums are named for philanthropic donors, which is common across college sports venues.

Campbell, an ASU graduate, worked on the Mountain America deal in his role as OVG’s vice president of global partnerships in Greater Phoenix. It was a combination of timing, opportunity and relationships with Mountain America and the university, he said, considering the stadium went through $300-plus million in renovations.

A big part of the upgrades was to improve the fan experience for students and alumni, which costs a lot of money. Campbell said it’s a fine line to change the name on a venue that’s been in existence since 1958, which makes for a tough conversation that goes all the way to the school president and board of regents that vote on whether it will happen.

It helped that Mountain America had an existing relationship with ASU, he said. In 2022, the credit union bought naming rights for the community ice plex that encompasses Mullett Arena, the school’s hockey facility run by OVG.

“They love the power of the pitchfork,” Campbell said, referring to ASU’s athletics logo. “It’s one of the largest public universities in the country, so they saw the value proposition there. When the time was right to have that conversation about stadium naming rights, it was an easy conversation. We made one phone call. As a bank, it’s an opportunity to develop (tens of thousands of) relationships with students that may stay with you for a long time.”