Van Wagner Sports & Entertainment has won an agency shootout to sell naming rights for Barcelona’s refurbished Camp Nou stadium in what is likely to be the world’s largest naming-rights deal, according to Terry Lefton of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Since Barça is "one of the top three team sports brands globally," industry sources said that the deal to put a corporate name on the 59-year-old home of Barcelona "should exceed" $30M per year. Serie A side AS Roma is seeking around $15M to $20M annually for naming rights to its new stadium, scheduled to open in Aug. '18. The "previous high in Europe" was Emirates’ 15-year, $180M deal struck in '04 that included both naming rights to the new home of Arsenal and a jersey sponsorship for the team. Van Wagner President & CEO Jeff Knapple was also involved in that deal. He said, "FC Barcelona is one of the world’s top brands in team sports, so the opportunity to help shape development of what should be the premier sports complex in Europe, is something we’re really excited about." Van Wagner’s assignment also includes selling five or six founding partners sponsorship at Camp Nou, along with rights for the entire complex and for a new arena. Barça "also has its jersey sponsorship out to bid" at a reported $65M annually. Qatar Airways has held those rights since '13. Scheduled to be completed in '21, the Camp Nou refurbishment will add 6,000 seats to what is "already Europe’s largest football stadium, giving it a capacity of more than 105,000." Other scheduled stadium improvements include a "partial roof and premium seating." The upgrades are part of a $680M refurbishment across Barcelona’s campus. One X factor is "how tolerant European fans will be" as far as adding a corporate moniker to one of Europe’s "most hallowed pitches." Especially in Spain, naming rights are not as ingrained, though club officials have been saying that money from selling those rights would underwrite the entire cost of a stadium modernization, "which may placate some football purists" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 5/2 issue).
