Everton new stadium: club make smart naming rights decision that could make millions in revenue

Partnering with Elevate Ventures was a wise choice, according to one industry expert

A general aerial view of the Bramley Moore Dock and the construction progress of Everton Football Club’s new football stadium with the teams present home Goodison Park in the background

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Everton’s move to a new home on the banks of the River Mersey will see them open up a myriad of revenue streams that previously weren’t available.

Selling the naming rights to somewhere as iconic and engrained into the fabric of the football club as Goodison Park was never an option, just like it hasn’t been for other clubs bound by tradition to their stadiums.

But for Everton, what is currently known as Everton Stadium will likely have a different moniker by the time the club moves into its new 52,888-seater abode in time for the 2025/26 season.

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On Thursday, the Toffees’ chief commercial officer, Richard Kenyon, updated fans via the club’s official website on a number of commercial issues, including the stadium naming rights partner, with Kenyon describing “good progress” having been made in the search.

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Back in 2022, Everton engaged US firm Elevate Ventures to work alongside the commercial team at the club to try and find a partner for the stadium, with Elevate having delivered on finding sponsorship for stadiums in San Jose, for the Earthquakes MLS team, and for the Pittsburgh Steelers NFL team.

There are differences between the UK and US stadium naming rights market, with the value of such marketing inventory far higher in the US due to greater visibility of brands through lack of competition, while big businesses that reside within the states of the team whose stadiums they sponsor has largely been the trend.

Daniel Haddad, head of commercial strategy at global sports agency Octagon, believes that Everton made a smart move in partnering with a firm like Elevate, with the club selling the rights for a 365-day-a-year multi-purpose venue, rather than just a football stadium used for 19 league games a year and the odd domestic cup game.

“That is a very that is a very specialist area, and that’s the kind of classic sponsorship sales agencies that clubs might use,” said Haddad.

“For instance, SportFive advises several clubs, Two Circles has a relationship with Arsenal, and CAA is working with Chelsea. It’s not an alien concept for football clubs.

“It’s normal for clubs of a certain size to have sponsorship sales agencies, and actually within that those firms I’m talking about are not specialists in stadium naming rights or stadium deals, they tend to focus very much on traditional assets or just traditional partnerships.

“In the US there are businesses that are very specialised in the area of stadium naming rights. and and I say it goes, yes, stadium naming rights. They will have more knowledge institutionally of how to package a stadium naming rights partner because it’s a completely different asset mix.

“They have a lot more best practices in actually how to create a rights package that is best in class and fit for purpose.

“Firms like Elevate will have a lot more institutional knowledge within the US.

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“When Shahid Khan (Fulham owner) was looking at buying Wembley Stadium, one of the reasons he wanted to buy it was because he thought it was massively under-commercialised based on his experience of operating a stadium in Jacksonville with the Jaguars.

“They had all sorts of crazy stuff in the Jacksonville Stadium, and they had something like 25 brand partners.

“Shahid Khan was basically saying, why in the UK is a stadium completely under-commercialised, not even just from a naming rights partner perspective, but other ways of integrating?

“I think if you were looking for an external resource to help you monetise a stadium, you probably wouldn’t go to one of the big European agencies or more established football agencies. You would go to Elevate or Legends, one of those that actually specialise in that area.

“Even though Everton hasn’t secured a name right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve actually added a lot of value, and that they are doing a good job on the other bits and pieces.”

With huge deals of $600m and $700m over 20 years struck in Los Angeles for the SoFi Stadium and Crypto.com Arena over the past four years, the temptation to look across the pond and see what has been achieved and use it as some kind of benchmark is great.

But Haddad explains there are key differences between the markets that mean that there won’t be parity when it comes to the value of European football stadia naming rights.

Said Haddad: “It’s a completely different mark in the US, and I think one of the big mistakes that a lot of European clubs or sports entities make is actually trying to draw a comparison on the value of a stadium naming rights deal in the US and trying to translate it into what that could mean in Europe.

“Essentially, the key difference is that if you look at traditionally how sports teams are able to sell their assets in the US, they don’t have to share, they don’t have the kind of other highly visible points of entry.

“For English clubs to try and reach the same level of revenue as delivered by US teams, that just isn’t going to happen given the differences that exist in the sponsorship industry here compared to there.”