This week Rotherham United bucked a trend by not selling the naming rights to their new stadium. So how come the League Two side could ‘afford’ to bypass the lucrative naming rights idea when many of their Premier League counterparts could not?
Lifelong Rotherham fan and Premier League referee Howard Webb, unveiled on Monday that from the start of the 2012/2013 season The Millers will play in the brand new 12,000 seater ‘New York Stadium’. The reason for the new name is based solely around the history of the local area, the area that the new stadium is based in was formerly known as New York. Also, a nearby steelworks made the iconic New York fire hydrants that still adorn the American city today.
Rotherham Chairmen Tony Stewart said, “The new stadium name is strongly rooted in more than 150 years of Rotherham’s proud history of industry and enterprise. After careful consultation and detailed research into the local history of the site, we felt that New York was the perfect name for our new stadium”.
It’s as simple as that. Sound reasoning for certain. But then why does The New York Stadium name seem to stand out like a sore thumb against the likes of Bolton’s Reebok Stadium or Man City’s Etihad Stadium?
Ultimately, money is the answer. How else could you explain Manchester City playing in a stadium named Etihad, an Arabic word that’s English translation is United? The riches that come from naming rights are just too good to turn down. And if the richest club in the world can justify doing this, then who can’t?
You may not recognise the name ‘Ashburton Grove’, even though it is the name of a new, large, state of the art Premier League football ground. That’s because (unless you’re an Arsenal fan) you would probably have only heard it referred to as the Emirates Stadium.
In 2004 it was announced that Arsenal had sold the naming rights to their new stadium to the airline. Fifteen years for a staggering £100million, it was reported. A huge sum of money for any club to turn down. It now appears that you could argue that many clubs value a figure like this higher than they value the integrity and history of their club.
Certainly the above figure is enough to turn the head of even the most free-spending chairmen. Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley recently renamed the historic St James’ Park the ‘sportsdirect.com @ St James' Park Stadium’! A move that was met with backlash from the Newcastle fans. Hopefully this means that this sort of tradition is still valued by the supporters, if not by the men in charge.
Perhaps we are too quick to judge though. What decision would we make if we were in charge? In the current financial climate the priority of the majority of people running our football clubs is simply to keep the club afloat, isn’t it? With that in mind who would turn down a multimillion pound cash injection? How much is the history of a club worth if the club itself no longer exists?
I think we’d all like to think that we know better than the Mike Ashley’s of this world. Believing that these owners have no right to mess around with the history, or future of OUR clubs. But perhaps we are living in a bit of a fantasy world if we think our club needs the name ‘Highbury’ more than it needs £100million.
Still, what’s wrong with that? Bravo to Rotherham United. For them having integrity, principals, and for having traditions. And more significantly, for the fact that their integrity, principals and traditions don’t have a price tag on them.
However, as old stadiums crumble and new stadiums become necessary this trend of selling the name of your ground can and will continue. When an owner looks at a new 60,000 capacity stadium, what is more important to him? £100million? Or the history of a football club that 5 years ago he’d never heard of anyway? Unfortunately, I think we all know which we think is more likely.