Monday, January 31, 2011

Record Naming Rights Deal for Proposd Downtown L.A. Stadium

Entertainment giant AEG will announce a 30-year, $700 million naming rights deal with Farmers Insurance for a proposed downtown Los Angeles football stadium, reports Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times.

Terry Lofton of SportsBusiness Daily places the value of the naming rights deal at $600 million.

Though an environment impact study hasn't been completed, not to mention there being no team to build a stadium for at the moment, AEG officials, including CEO Tim Leiweke, will unveil the plan at a Tuesday press conference that will be attended by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Farmer notes that no funds would change hands until the proposed $1 billion stadium is built. Still, Farmers CMO Kevin Kelso is eager to be associated with an NFL return to the country's second-largest media market.

"To have the NFL come back to L.A. and for us to be involved in that is just such a huge thing," Kelso said according to the SBJ report. "We saw the potential for this project to revitalize downtown forever and really wanted to be a part of that."

Kelso also sounds convinced that once a stadium is built, an NFL team will soon follow. Kelso may have also received assurances from the NFL that will be the case.

"The contract addresses a number of contingencies," Kelso said. "The reality is there’s very little likelihood that an NFL team is not going to come into this stadium when it’s built. I am not worried about that.

"We came away from those conversations (with NFL officials) wanting to do the deal, so draw your own conclusions," Kelso said.

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