The San Francisco 49ers said today that Levi Strauss & Co. will pay more than $220 million for naming rights to the team’s new stadium, being built in Santa Clara and planned to open in time for the 2014 NFL season. The deal is for 20 years, with an option for five more years, according to industry analysts.
The 65,000-seat stadium is located about 45 miles south of San Francisco, where the 49ers currently play in Candlestick Park. The team said that more than 30 companies were bidding for naming rights.
Levi’s Stadium could get an immediate ROI. NFL team owners later this month are scheduled to vote on the site of Super Bowl L in 2016. San Francisco’s only competition is Sun Life Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, which this week received bad news when local politicians refused to approve finances that would be intend to upgrade the stadium.
Levi’s also gets other in-stadium rights, including other significant signage and becoming the official non-sportswear apparel partner for the team and Levi’s Stadium. Levi’s will also launch multi-media marketing campaigns to support the stadium and its alliance with the 49ers.
Levi’s joins a current list of six other stadium founding partners: Anheuser-Busch, Brocade, NRG Energy, SAP, Sony and Violin Memory.
Barry Janoff is the Director of Sports Media Marketing Initiatives for PromaxBDA. He also is the Executive Editor for NYSportsJournalism.com, which covers national sports marketing, business and media news; and a contributing writer for Yahoo! and MediaPost.
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