National Car Rental this morning announced it has agreed to name a prospective St. Louis football stadium for 20 years and $158M, a move that comes as NFL owners today are discussing possibly moving the Rams to L.A. next year. The stadium would be called National Car Rental Field. The deal was arranged by the St. Louis stadium task force and signed with the St. Louis Regional Sports Authority, which would own the stadium. The Rams had no role in the deal; Rams Owner Stan Kroenke wants to move his team to Inglewood, Calif. “The commitment to keeping the NFL in St. Louis is as much a civic commitment as a brand commitment,” said Enterprise Holdings Chief Marketing & Communications Officer Patrick Farrell, whose company owns the National Car brand. Enterprise is headquartered in St. Louis. Farrell also cited the league’s demographics as aligning with the car brand’s core customers. Dave Peacock, the co-chair of the nearly year-old stadium task force that is striving to present a viable stadium proposal to the NFL, approached Farrell three months ago about a founding partner deal. Farrell called back and asked about naming rights. “I nearly fell out of my chair,” said Peacock, who was aided in the negotiations by Premier Partnerships. NFL team owners today are in N.Y. to discuss the L.A. relocation effort, and whether this announcement changes the NFL/L.A. dynamic is unclear. However, it could undercut the argument that St. Louis is not an NFL market. Sources said Kroenke made that argument in August to his fellow owners, worrying about the market’s growth potential. Peacock pointed out the market ranks 15th in the NFL in terms of corporate base. Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones this morning dismissed the naming-rights deal, saying $158M "would be enough to pay for a lobby" in a new L.A. stadium. He pegged the L.A. project cost at $3B. Jones is known to support Kroenke’s relocation bid.
: For National, which spends $10-15M annually advertising on NFL broadcasts, the deal is a return to the naming-rights game. Under previous ownership, the brand attached its name to the NHL Panthers arena in Sunrise, Fla., but that deal came undone in '07 when the company filed for bankruptcy protection. Since that time, the new owners have spent $200M reviving the brand, Farrell said. Some of that has gone to sports sponsorships, such as with the PGA Tour and the MLB Cardinals. However, the football stadium would be far and away its largest deal. There are no other car rental naming-rights deals in major U.S. sports. National is not the first company to align with a prospective stadium. Farmers Insurance agreed to sponsor a downtown L.A. stadium proposed by AEG. Farmers got great exposure as the viability of the site was debated over the years. However, when AEG could not reach agreement with the NFL, the sponsorship expired (
Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer).
SEEN AS A BIG REVENUE SOURCE: In St. Louis, David Hunn in a front-page piece reports it is unclear how the naming-rights money "will be used." The state of Missouri or city of St. Louis "could pledge the annual proceeds to a bond measure, providing a large chunk of cash for stadium construction," or the money "could go to team owners as a sort of guaranteed revenue." Regardless, it "provides a significant revenue source" for the $1B stadium. Local leaders expect the deal "could be an enticing carrot for a team owner seeking to defray his own portion of stadium construction costs." Peacock emphasized that the deal "doesn’t mean the state or city will have to pay less for the stadium." He said, "It provides certainty around the project, more than anything" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 10/7). National would pay $6.5M in the first year of the deal, with a 2% "annual inflation escalator every year after that" (AP, 10/6). In N.Y., Ken Belson notes the amount of the naming-rights deal for the St. Louis stadium "is in line with a city of its size." The Cowboys and Jets/Giants "have the most lucrative agreements," with their respective deals with AT&T and MetLife worth $19M annually. The St. Louis/National deal "would be less than naming rights agreements in Charlotte and Philadelphia and more than those in Denver and Indianapolis" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/7).
