Austin FC Lands Stadium Naming Rights Partner In Fintech Company Q2

Austin FC and fintech company Q2 have reached an agreement for the Austin-based firm to become the MLS club’s naming rights partner for its new venue, which will be called Q2 Stadium when it opens in early summer.

Excel Sports Management assisted Austin FC in its stadium naming rights partner pursuit. Conversations between Excel and Q2 picked up steam last summer, while the club was vetting possible partners. They zeroed in on Q2 last fall. "This is an opportunity for them to create a new voice utilizing a pretty unique platform,” said Austin FC President Andy Loughnane. "Q2’s stated objective is to invest in Austin and serve the community and I’ve been pretty transparent about this all along, we wanted to identify a naming rights partner that wanted to give back to Austin." Financial details weren’t disclosed.

Q2, which provides tech to enable mobile banking, primarily for smaller, community-focused financial institutions, will have a signature stadium sign in the interior bowl, as well as prominent branding positions as fans enter the stadium and aerial-facing sign positions atop the stadium’s unique canopy structures. It also will put its name on a branded premium seating experience called the Q2 Field Club, located directly next to Austin FC players' walk from the locker room to the playing field. The stadium is owned by the city of Austin, but Loughnane said the MLS club is not required to share naming rights revenue with the municipality.

For Q2 Chief Strategy Officer Will Furrer, the deal, the company’s first sports sponsorship, was about putting action behind its community support mission. Included in the partnership is a program that will annually deliver $150,000 in donations to local non-profits, including one selected each year by Austin FC fans, as well as a competition called Dream Starter to annually award $100,000 to a Austin-based startup that demonstrates a strong business case.

Furrer said that another reason behind the naming rights deal was to help Q2 stand out in a crowded and competitive tech job environment in Austin. Furrer hopes the stadium naming rights deal will give the firm some positive separation in its recruitment efforts. "I don’t think that If you would have asked us even nine months ago if we would have told you we would ever consider doing something in sports," said Furrer. "What’s happening with employment, what’s happening with COVID and what’s happening with people’s lives, companies that are doing well need to be planting trees, if you will, so that people can sit under that shade in the next five, 10, 15 years."