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This Bud's for the Giants and Jets

The new stadium rising up next to Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands doesn't yet have a name, because the Giants and the Jets, who will be the sharing haven't found the title sponsor. However, the two teams have come up with a stadium sponsorship program unique in the NFL and probably in arenas and stadiums in the US. Instead of securing numerous sponsors for every nook and cranny of the scoreboards and the walls, the teams are selling five sponsorship packages, one for each corner and one for naming rights to the stadium.

To date, two of the corners have reportedly been sold, with Met Life having been announced on Monday. Anheuser-Busch is supposed to be announced today as the second corner sponsor, according to the Wall Street Journal. The corner sponsors get exclusive rights to ads inside the stadium and on the scoreboards to be erected in "their" corner. While no price was announced, it is estimated that the corner sponsorship is being sold for $10-$15 million per year, while the naming rights is currently being marketed for $25 million per year. T

The less is more approach is a good one and should result in greater sponsorship dealers in the long run. I believe that most companies would be willing to pay more for sponsorship where they could be assured of space for branding whose message would not be lost in the clutter of other companies that is usually found in stadiums and arenas. For their sake, I hope that the Giants and Jets get Anheuser-Busch to sign a binding long-term agreement quickly before any deal with InBev goes through, since sports sponsorships, and particularly big dollar deals, are not InBev's preferred marketing strategy.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on June 19, 2008 (boomark / email).