View: Tottenham could miss out on lucrative naming-rights deal after Daniel Levy shares stadium news
Daniel Levy has revealed that finding a sponsor for the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is “no longer a top priority,” during an exclusive interview with Bloomberg.
Since moving into their brand-new shiny home, many Spurs supporters have often wondered what they should call their home ground. While it is officially known as ‘The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium,’ this doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, and many fans probably still refer to their home as ‘The Lane.’
Rumours have circulated over the past couple of years as to who would secure a lucrative naming rights deal for the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Would it be the ‘Google’ stadium, the ‘Amazon’ stadium or perhaps something else? Well, for now, it appears a new name is not a priority.
During an exclusive interview with Bloomberg (21 September), Spurs chairman Levy spoke about all things Tottenham and insisted that the club are in no rush to find a new sponsor.
“If we get the right naming rights partner — and when I say that, I mean somebody who pays the right money in the right sector — then we are willing to consider doing it,” Levy said.
“But we’re not as tied to doing it now as perhaps we would’ve been when we first looked at building the stadium.”
Naming rights deals for sporting venues can be very lucrative, and Tottenham could be missing out on a lot of money.
As per Football London (18 September), “The Staples Center in Los Angeles, the home of the NBA teams the Lakers and Clippers among other sports franchises, became the Crypto.com Arena in 2021 as part of a £565million 20-year naming rights deal.
“Also in LA, the impressive SoFi Stadium, home to the NFL teams the Rams and Chargers and owned by Arsenal owner and co-chairman Stan Kroenke, was opened in 2020 with a big naming-rights deal worth £504million over 20 years.”
These examples demonstrate just how much money these types of deals can bring in, and with the knowledge of this, it would be strange for the club not to capitalise. The quality and exposure of the stadium would surely mean that there isn’t a shortage of brands who would be willing to take on such a deal.
Nonetheless, Levy has implied that the club aren’t as tied to doing it as before the stadium was built, which can only mean one thing – the club is already making plenty of money off of the stadium, and perhaps more than they ever envisioned.
With countless concerts and sporting events being held at the ground, as well as the lucrative partnership with the NFL, they might perhaps feel there is no need to rebrand their £1billion plus home, or at the very least no rush to do so.
Tottenham are by no means struggling for the money either, with their most recent financial records (10 February) revealing that the club’s revenue increased by 23 per cent, up to £444million for the year ending June 2022.
Considering the impact the COVID-19 pandemic would have had on the club, it is scary to think just how much money the stadium would have made if it wasn’t for those lost years, and perhaps a naming rights deal isn’t so important after all.
In other Tottenham news, one first-team star has been ruled out injured for the majority of the season in a major blow to Ange Postecoglou.