Kentucky’s new baseball stadium carries the slogan used to promote the state’s farmers.University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky’s new baseball stadium is named after a marketing slogan used by the state’s agriculture department to promote local farmers and their products. How a slogan wound up on a stadium naming-rights deal is almost as unique as the name itself.
The sparkling new $49 million Kentucky Proud Park will officially open on Feb. 26 when the Wildcats host Eastern Kentucky. It will be one of only a handful of on-campus baseball stadiums with a naming-rights deal. In the SEC, Texas A&M has Blue Bell Park and South Carolina has Founders Park.
Until now, the slogan Kentucky Proud would have been found only in grocery stores that carry the meat and dairy products from local farmers. The state’s ag department had nowhere near the budget required to pay for stadium naming rights that cost $500,000 a year.
Enter Kentucky Farm Bureau, the ubiquitous insurance company with a long grassroots history of being the go-to provider for the state’s farmers. Kentucky Farm Bureau also has the distinction of being UK’s longest-running sponsor and the biggest spender with JMI Sports, the school’s multimedia rights holder.
Kentucky Farm Bureau made a play for the naming rights on UK’s football stadium, but couldn’t wrestle the deal away from Kroger last year.
As JMI’s Paul Archey and Kim Shelton brainstormed how to sell the baseball stadium, they kept coming back to the slogan Kentucky Proud.
“What a great brand that is for the stadium. How do we get that done?” Archey said. “Well, we know Farm Bureau has a long history of supporting farmers and they have offices across the state in all 120 counties. Let’s go pitch them on the idea of supporting farmers.”
John Sparrow, CEO of Kentucky Farm Bureau, was sold in one meeting. Kentucky Farm Bureau would pay for the deal and the ag department could use pass-through rights to put its slogan on the stadium for the next 15 years. Ryan Quarles, the state’s agriculture department commissioner, signed off on it and the deal was completed in October.
Farm Bureau still has prominent branding throughout the baseball park, just as it does with the football stadium and Rupp Arena. The insurance company also has a robust radio and digital advertising spend across UK’s platforms through JMI.
Naming rights were a significant piece of the deal in 2014 when JMI acquired UK’s multimedia rights for $210 million over 15 years. JMI sold Kroger the football stadium naming rights for $1.85 million annually over 12 years.
JMI’s total revenue from the two naming-rights deals is $29.7 million — $22.2 million from football and $7.5 million from baseball — that over time will cover the $29.4 million signing bonus JMI paid UK, which was used to start building the baseball stadium.
