The Fire yesterday announced that coating company Valspar will be the club's new jersey partner beginning in '16. The partnership will include integration into a number of fan and community initiatives. The company, which will be the Fire's official paint, receives entitlement of Toyota Park's stage for home games and becomes a cornerstone partner of the new $20M PrivateBank Fire Pitch training facility (Fire). In Chicago, Danny Ecker noted the deal "ends a four-year run with Quaker, which signed on with the Fire in 2012 under a three-year deal said to be worth" about $2.5M per year. The two sides renewed the deal for one year heading into the '15 season. Terms of the Valspar deal were not disclosed, but sources said that it "is likely valued" between $2.5-3M per year over three years. That "would rank among the top half of the league in terms of jersey sponsorship revenue, but well short" of the $4.4M per year that the Galaxy get from Herbalife. On track to finish with the worst record in the 20-team league, it is "not the ideal time for the Fire to be locking up its lead corporate partner." But "trumping those issues is the weight of a new eight-year broadcast rights deal that the league signed last year with ESPN, Fox Sports and Univision reportedly worth" $90M per year. The Fire "have also drastically expanded the club's reach in the community and among young soccer players since the last time it sold a jersey sponsorship deal" (CHICAGOBUSINESS.com, 10/14).
A TRIP TO NEW JERSEY: In Chicago, Brian Sandalow notes the Fire in announcing the deal "posted a 38-second video online that includes a brief shot of Valspar’s logo on a horizontal white stripe between two red ones." This "could indicate the Fire are returning next season to their traditional primary red jersey, which has a broad horizontal white stripe over the chest but had been abandoned in recent years" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 10/15).
