Candlestick Gets New Name

By Bill Miller

The National Football League's San Francisco 49ers inked a reported 4-year, $6 million naming rights agreement with Bay Area electronic company Monster Cable to rename the former Candlestick Park.

The deal is said to be a four-year agreement. Revenue created by the agreement will reportedly be split between the team and the City of San Francisco which owns the stadium. The City's funds will go to its Recreation and Parks Department.

The new name is the second corporate name to adorn the venerable facility built in 1960 as another Bay Area computer company, 3Com, previously held the naming rights for the facility in the late 1990s.

An initiative to prohibit the city from naming any publicly-owned facilities is up for a vote in November. City officials have indicated that they do not believe that vote will have an effect on this agreement.

Details on the benefits that Monster Cable will receive as part of the deal were unavailable.

The agreement makes the 49ers the 18th team in the National Football League to play at a named facility. The team is actually the 19th if one counts the Miami Dolphins playing in Pro Player Stadium under a now-defunct deal as playing in a corporately named facility.

The deal was the 17th completed for a professional sports facility in the United States or Canada already in 2004.

Posted 10/05/2004

Bill Miller is 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