It made for a good headline at the time: “Revamped Windsor Park could become the Tayto Stadium”.
atchy intro too: “It’s crunch time for Windsor Park as football chiefs are refusing to rule out a stadium naming rights deal with Ulster snacks company Tayto…”
Well, “crunch time” has been and gone.
That story appeared in this newspaper over six and a half years ago, and Windsor Park is still called, erm, Windsor Park.
Or rather ‘The National Stadium at Windsor Park’.
Essentially, it’s the replacement word for ‘National’ that is up for grabs at the Irish FA, and the end product could be quite a mouthful, especially if someone like PriceWaterhouseCoopers showed interest.
The truth is, though, we’re no nearer to having Windsor Park — or ‘The Shrine’, as my late mentor Malcolm Brodie called it — than we were when the IFA’s bread was first cast upon the waters in 2015.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, the non-negotiable incorporation of the old name into any new one.
There’s no way Linfield FC, fellow custodians of the impressively rebuilt south Belfast stadium, would accept anything less.
Secondly, even if such a treasonous act was permitted, most people would still refer to the place as ‘Windsor Park’ or simply ‘Windsor’.
After all, it’s been that way for over a century.
As the likes of Arsenal, West Ham and Man City have discovered, it’s a lot easier to christen a new stadium than rename an old one.
Ironically, an exception to that rule can be found a few miles across the city from Windsor Park, where Ulster rugby fans, after initial grumbles, had little difficulty adapting to the revamped Ravenhill’s new moniker in 2014 (although, for fear of a contentious, topical digression, we’ll not dwell on that issue right now).
Ditto the Aviva, née Lansdowne Road in Dublin, and the SSE (ex-Odyssey) Arena here.
That said, owners of newbuilds have discovered there’s a major bump in the road when it comes to replacing the inaugural sponsors at the end of a contract.
Bolton fans, for instance, still refer to their club’s home as the ‘Reebok Stadium’ — eight years after a rival sportswear brand, Macron, bought the naming rights.
The Italian company gave up trying after four years and the ‘Reebok’ is now (officially) known as the University of Bolton Stadium.
There are exceptions too, most notably with Leicester City fans, who had no problems with the Walker’s Stadium — aka ‘The Crisp Bowl’ — morphing into the King Power a decade ago.
The ‘King Power’ is one of only four Premier League grounds named after sponsors but it’s rife in England’s lower divisions where proud sponsors such as Dunes Hotel (Barrow), Cherry Red Records (Wimbledon), Jonny-Rocks (Cheltenham) and Wham (Accrington Stanley) have their names on the clubs’ addresses.
Closer to home, there’s the wonderfully named Hunky Dorys Park (yep, crisps again) in Drogheda while, not to be left out, Scotland can offer us Livingston’s Tony Macaroni Arena. Castleford Tigers Rugby League club fans have even stopped smirking en route to the Mend-A-Hose Jungle.
But try renaming St James Park (as former owner Mike Ashley discovered to his cost), Goodison Park, Villa Park, Stamford Bridge — or Old Trafford — and see how far you get.
Not surprisingly, potential sponsors await Manchester United’s decision on whether to redevelop the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ or build a completely new stadium — for which the bidding for naming rights would start at £27m per year.
This is around £10m a year less than Spurs are asking for the right to rename their stunning but unimaginatively titled ‘Tottenham Hotspur Stadium’. So far, no takers.
Barcelona had more joy, acquiring a desperately-needed shedload of cash — £235 million over three years from this summer onwards — for shirt sponsorship and to accept Europe’s biggest football stadium, which is currently being massively revamped, being called the ‘Spotify Nou Camp’. Which not a single Barca fan ever will call it.
Last year, Glentoran’s 130-year-old stadium was renamed the BetMcLean Oval as part of a £250k five-year sponsorship deal — the biggest in the east Belfast club’s history.
Fun fact: that other famous Oval — Surrey Cricket Club’s home ground — was the first in the UK to sign a naming rights deal when it became the Foster’s Oval in 1988. Since then, it has been rebranded as the AMP Oval, Brit Oval and now Kia Oval...
Naming rights are a quintessential American thing and have been commonplace across the pond for nearly a century; Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field, for instance, was named after tycoon William Wrigley’s chewing gum business back in 1926.
Indeed, most US pro teams’ venues are named after commercial partners and it’s big bucks, worth an average £7.4m a year.
For that money the sponsors are guaranteed, among other things, regular name checks by the mainstream broadcasters.
It was only last December that a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange shelled out over half a billion pounds for the 20-year right to rename the former Staples Centre — home to the LA Clippers, Lakers, Sparks and Kings — as the ‘Crypto-com Arena’.
Virtually overnight, fans of those Californian basketball and ice-hockey teams rechristened it ‘The Crypt’...
These days, few Americans do a double-take when approaching the KFC Yum! Center (Louisville), Talking Stick Resort Arena (Phoenix Suns and Mercury) or Guaranteed Rate Field (Boston White Sox).
My favourite actually hails from India: the Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium. Try saying that with a mouthful of Tayto.
The desire to bolt corporate names onto North American stadiums is understandable because, until recently, shirt sponsorship was not allowed; it’s more likely the Yanks will start following the European model, rather than the other way round.
Shirt deals are clearly more desirable from a marketing point of view than naming rights, courtesy of at least 11 prominent company logos running around a field during a globally transmitted live game.
That doesn’t happen in international football though, which is why the Irish FA are anxious to hear from any interested parties.
I’m assured they haven’t been scaring people off with an unrealistic fixed price and are prepared to negotiate.
Maybe there’s hope yet for a ‘Tayto Cheese & Onion Stadium at Windsor Park’.
