Some nontraditional sponsorships will bring a local flavor to the new home of the Minnesota Vikings.
In addition to U.S. Bank, a Minneapolis company that holds the stadium’s naming rights, the Vikings expect about half of their seven or eight founding partners to hail from Minnesota and neighboring states, said John Penhollow, the team’s director of new stadium partnerships. Minnesota is a strong market nationally for big business, featuring about 20 Fortune 500 companies.
 |
When it’s complete, the stadium bowl will be “clean,” without a large inventory of permanent signs.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
|
U.S. Bank Stadium is designed as a “clean building” without a large inventory of permanent signage to fold into sponsorships, Penhollow said. “It’s a different setup here,” he said. “What we tried to do is divide up permanent signage, club entitlements and gate sponsors and determine the right companies for our building. It’s [still] important to find a home for any one of those Fortune 500 firms.”
Land O’ Lakes and Hy-Vee are two regional companies that have signed 10-year deals, joining MillerCoors as founding partners announced by the Vikings.
Land O’ Lakes, a $15 billion firm, makes its home in Arden Hills, a Minneapolis suburb. It’s known for its dairy products, but many people don’t realize that Purina, an animal feed supplier, and WinField, an agriscience technology group, are part of the Land O’ Lakes family, Penhollow said.
“Part of the reason they’re doing this deal is not only do they put butter on the shelves but they help farmers around the world go from dirt to crops,” he said. “Maybe they’re willing to do some things with us that others wouldn’t, meaning going to the community with us in a different way than a traditional brand might do. At the very top, they employ a lot of people in this region.”
Hy-Vee, an employee-owned supermarket chain that generated $8 billion in revenue in 2014, is based in West Des Moines, Iowa, and has 20 stores in southern Minnesota. This month, Hy-Vee opens its first two stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.
Elsewhere in the NFL, Hy-Vee is a major sponsor of the Kansas City Chiefs and holds naming rights to a gate at Arrowhead Stadium.
In Minnesota, the Hy-Vee deal is “going to allow us to go to retail in a very meaningful way, whether it’s our soda partner or salty snacks,” Penhollow said. “A lot of our partners right now are limited on where they can go from a retail perspective to activate our partnerships together.”
As part of the activation, the Vikings could potentially tie Hy-Vee into the team’s mobile application, Penhollow said.
