Newcastle United Bosses Decide to Rename St. James’ Park
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November 10, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
Newcastle’s St. James’ Park has been renamed the Sports Direct Arena as club officials seek extra funds through naming rights.
Newcastle United’s managing director, Derek Llambias, announced that St. James’ Park has be renamed the Sports Direct Arena to represent naming rights opportunities to businesses.
The club are hoping that offering full naming rights to the stadium will help generate extra funds to make the club more competitive, whilst stabilising its finances after operating losses - before player dealings - of over £35 million in 2009 and 2010 seasons.
The clubs fans will likely be upset by the move to take away the name that has been associated with the ground since its development in 1892. Llambias believes, however, the compromise for fans will come through extra funds being made available for new signings. Speaking with BBC Newcastle, he argued: “The fans want us to buy more players, we need a new striker in January, and we’ll need replacements in the summer. We need to give ourselves as much of a chance as possible.”
The club had originally offered sponsors the chance to link their brand name with the St. James Park title. Since 2009, the stadium was known as Sportsdirect.com at St. James’ Park, but the club announced Wednesday that after consultation with international branding experts, the full naming rights would be more commercially attractive.
Llambias said that the Sports Direct Arena title is to showcase the opportunity, and that the club are “now actively seeking a long-term sponsor wishing to acquire full naming rights for the stadium”.
The club’s shirt sponsorship deal with Northern Rock is also set to expire at the end of the year, and Llambias was quick to point out the “opportunity to acquire both the naming rights [to the stadium] and shirt sponsorship deals” to interested parties.
By Matthew Giles
[Image courtesy of machernucha]
