The 49ers today announced that they have signed a naming-rights deal with Levi Strauss for their new $1.2B stadium under construction in Santa Clara. Levi Strauss will pay $220M over 20 years, and the venue will be called Levi's Stadium. The deal requires approval by the Santa Clara City Council, which is expected to vote on it tomorrow night. Two months ago, reports surfaced out of the Bay Area that Levi Strauss had registered several stadium domain names in preparation for signing a naming-rights deal. At that time, the 49ers refused to comment on the rumors of a deal with the company. Levi’s officials in a statement confirmed they had registered those names for “future opportunities.” The company generated $4.6B in net revenue for '12, a decrease of 3% compared with the previous year, according to its annual report. The decline in revenue resulted in the formation of a new leadership team and organizational structure at Levi Strauss as the company strives to “make LS & Co. great again,” as Levi's President & CEO Chip Bergh said in the report. A stadium naming-rights deal tied to the NFL would obviously fall in line with the company’s renewed strategy to grow revenue. The 68,500-seat stadium, scheduled to open in August '14, is considered the front-runner to host Super Bowl L in '16. The NFL will announce sites for the '16 and '17 games on May 21. The naming-rights deal with Levi's would follow six founding-partner deals the 49ers signed with Anheuser-Busch, Brocade, NRG Energy, SAP, Sony and Violin Memory. Each of those deals are valued in the seven figures annually.
