By Bill Miller

Over the past decade naming rights have become an essential financing resource for major league facilities around the world. As might be expected where the potential for large revenue generation is involved, the use of naming rights has filtered down to the minor leagues, colleges, high schools, little league fields, golf domes and, even, skateboard parks. 

The past several years have seen shopping malls, concert venues, performance arts venues, convention centers, high schools, public transit and virtually any other facility that draws patrons on a regular basis implement or explore the sale of naming rights.

In addition, we have seen many traditional sponsorship agreements in sports stadiums and arenas become identified as "naming rights" agreements as teams and facilities seemingly try to leverage the cache of naming rights for increasing their bottom line.

For example, the development of the one-year naming rights agreement and the one-week naming rights agreement have also come to pass recently. In each of these instances, it is obvious that the benefits of naming rights can be difficult to achieve...

While these approaches work in the sense of generating revenue for the short-term, the question that has to be asked is will we reach a point of saturation in this industry? Are teams and facilities too quick to label traditional sponsorship as "naming rights" in order to generate a quicker return? If so, will this mean that "traditional" naming rights could lose their effect in the minds of consumers, and more importantly for facilities, the sponsors who pay for them?

If this occurs, will teams and facilities be killing the golden goose of naming rights? The issue for industry executives to consider is what does the future hold? 

Posted 4/4/2004

Bill Miller is an Executive Vice President at The Leib Group, LLC in Mequon, Wisconsin. He is a regular contributor to Naming Rights Online and can be reached at bmiller@namingrightsonline.com.