Ralph Should Sell Stadium Naming Rights

[BenchBledsoe]

Okay, we know that we're slightly at a disadvantage, and the lower-revenue clubs sure weren't helped by the new CBA.

 

So, how much could Ralph get for selling the name of the stadium to a corporate sponsor? How does this work? It seems that almost everyone is doing it, so Ralph should help himself (and us!) by doing this. It is a revenue stream that he can easily tap into. It would cut down the advantage of some of the other clubs. I'm sure FEDEX pays that little runt Snyder a pretty penny.

 

How about UPS Wilson Stadium? Or Pepsi Wilson Stadium? Or Budweiser Wilson Stadium?

 

Or Vivid Video Wilson Stadium? The Vivid girls could double as ticker takers in a money making promo. You could get your picture taken with them sitting in your lap for $10.00. . . genius I say, pure genius. Ralphie would be neck and neck with Danny S. in a flicker. . .

[apuszczalowski]

Ralph doesn't own the stadium (Doesn't the county own it and lease it to him?)

 

I believe they named it after him as kind of a good will, thanks for what you have done, please stay here and don't build a new stadium type deals

[BenchBledsoe]

Ralph doesn't own the stadium (Doesn't the county own it and lease it to him?)

 

I believe they named it after him as kind of a good will, thanks for what you have done, please stay here and don't build a new stadium type deals

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But, can't he get something for getting a corporate sponsor's name on it? Or if the county could get the money, hey, done deal.

[Buftex]

But, can't he get something for getting a corporate sponsor's name on it? Or if the county could get the money, hey, done deal.

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Ironically, the stadium in Orchard Park, formerly known as Rich Stadium (of Rich dairy products fame!) was amongst the very first names to have a corporate name. Now, it is one of the few that doesn't. I seem to remember, back in the early 1990's (when times were good in Buffalo!), Ralph Wilson expressed some disgust over this practice....

[Pyrite Gal]

Ealph has a captive buyer in the form of Erie County which owns the stadium as they were willing to pay a pretty high price to keep the Bills in town when the lease came up for renewal several years back.

 

Ralphie played hardball with the negotiations and even though we now know that he is committed as any out of towner can be to keeping the Bills in Buffalo as long as he is alive, he did not make this commitment clear until after the lease deal was negotiated.

 

Dennis Gorski, who was the County Exec at the time had put WNY in a bad situation by playing hardball with the negotiation prior to this one, because the NFL was in a much weaker state as team owners had wasted time and money warring with the NFLPA (and beating the crap out of them in the work stoppage of the mid-80s). The NFL was averaging roughly two work stoppages a decade in the pre-Tagliaboo-boo period and being an unreliable source of TV product and given the limited competition between the networks, Gorski was in a position to even flirt with the possibility that the Bills would leave town.

 

The last negotiation was payback time and Ralph was in a position to write his own ticket and Gorski came back hat in hand begging for the Bills to stay.

 

Fortunately for WNY, we had a couple of bright hard-working guys who pulled out far out of the fire.

 

Rich Tobe was Gorski's Commissioner of Environmental Development, but proved to be so bright that he became Gorski's go-to guy on any big issue (for example in addition to handling the Bills lease negotiations, he also oversaw repair of a range of other County fires like reform of the County welfare debacle which had caved in under cost-shifting from NYS to the counties when Gerge Pataki became governor) and oversaw these items from his Environmental slot.

 

Tobe either authored or at least understood a series of proposals which let the Bills get good profits without raping the County to much. It was in this context that the County "offered" to name the stadium after Ralph instead of selling the naming rights. The County would have been happy to sell the naming rights to the highest bidder as part of the offset against the numerous costs like security which the County took off the Bills balance sheet. Instead with a wink and a nod the County "decided" to "honor" (kiss the butt of) Ralph by naming the stadium after him,

 

The other bright hard working guy was local lawyer Erkie Kilbourne who chaired the Business Backs the Bills effort which worked aggressively to do the Bills work in selling club seats and luxury boxes to local businesses in this small market and relatively easily met the luxury box targets and with a lot of hard work, negging and arm twisting eventually met the club seat targets as well.

 

In general on the naming rights issue, Ralph can write his own ticket. The Bills are in a position of total power in negotiations with either party in charge of the Exec seat.

 

Regardless of who actually owns the rights, their are ample methods for making the proceeds of any sale benefit the Bills (ex. the County sales the rights but the Bills either transfer costs they bear for operating the Stadium to the Coubnty who then pays for them with the extra revenue derived from the rights sale).

 

In terms of how much they are worth simply do a search on the net for articles about the recent sale of naming rights by Indianoplis for their new stadium. While Indy is probably more bustling than Buffalo it also is a smaller market. There appear to be two reasons that companies want to by naming rights:

 

1. It actually is a national advertising opportunity rather than focused on local sales. The name of your company on a stadium appears at least 8 times a year on TV and in countless newspapers when stadium names are listed. This is not focused advertising that makes a pitch like a commercial, but in a competitive advertising context like America there actually is some real value to simply having your name mentioned a number of times that has been shown to be of some real value.

 

The second reason is braggin rights. Your company shows that it is a mover and a shaker and a major league property because it canafford this luxury item.

 

I think Indy had previously long ago sold the naming rights to their old stadium for a million bucks a year and the new deal calls for them to get something like $10 million. Not bad for something that really costs the team nothing to do beyond putting up a few signs (though a team can probably even shift this cost sway from the).

 

I think the real ticket here though is that the NFL reaffirmed and reloaded the fund that teams can reach into for help building their own stadium. Buffalo's new Mayor Brown just mentioned the idea of building a new waterfront football stadium. For folks interested in keeping the Bills here in perpetuity, having this NFL fund invest in helping the Bills build a new stadium here is one ofr linking the Bills to an asset they cannot move and thus make it harder for the Bills to leave town.

[Mile High]

Ealph has a captive buyer in the form of Erie County which owns the stadium as they were willing to pay a pretty high price to keep the Bills in town when the lease came up for renewal several years back.

 

Ralphie played hardball with the negotiations and even though we now know that he is committed as any out of towner can be to keeping the Bills in Buffalo as long as he is alive, he did not make this commitment clear until after the lease deal was negotiated.

 

Dennis Gorski, who was the County Exec at the time had put WNY in a bad situation by playing hardball with the negotiation prior to this one, because the NFL was in a much weaker state as team owners had wasted time and money warring with the NFLPA (and beating the crap out of them in the work stoppage of the mid-80s). The NFL was averaging roughly two work stoppages a decade in the pre-Tagliaboo-boo period and being an unreliable source of TV product and given the limited competition between the networks, Gorski was in a position to even flirt with the possibility that the Bills would leave town.

 

The last negotiation was payback time and Ralph was in a position to write his own ticket and Gorski came back hat in hand begging for the Bills to stay.

 

Fortunately for WNY, we had a couple of bright hard-working guys who pulled out far out of the fire.

 

Rich Tobe was Gorski's Commissioner of Environmental Development, but proved to be so bright that he became Gorski's go-to guy on any big issue (for example in addition to handling the Bills lease negotiations, he also oversaw repair of a range of other County fires like reform of the County welfare debacle which had caved in under cost-shifting from NYS to the counties when Gerge Pataki became governor) and oversaw these items from his Environmental slot.

 

Tobe either authored or at least understood a series of proposals which let the Bills get good profits without raping the County to much. It was in this context that the County "offered" to name the stadium after Ralph instead of selling the naming rights.  The County would have been happy to sell the naming rights to the highest bidder as part of the offset against the numerous costs like security which the County took off the Bills balance sheet. Instead with a wink and a nod the County "decided" to "honor" (kiss the butt of) Ralph by naming the stadium after him,

 

The other bright hard working guy was local lawyer Erkie Kilbourne who chaired the Business Backs the Bills effort which worked aggressively to do the Bills work in selling club seats and luxury boxes to local businesses in this small market and relatively easily met the luxury box targets and with a lot of hard work, negging and arm twisting eventually met the club seat targets as well.

 

In general on the naming rights issue, Ralph can write his own ticket. The Bills are in a position of total power in negotiations with either party in charge of the Exec seat.

 

Regardless of who actually owns the rights, their are ample methods for making the proceeds of any sale benefit the Bills (ex. the County sales the rights but the Bills either transfer costs they bear for operating the Stadium to the Coubnty who then pays for them with the extra revenue derived from the rights sale).

 

In terms of how much they are worth simply do a search on the net for articles about the recent sale of naming rights by Indianoplis for their new stadium. While Indy is probably more bustling than Buffalo it also is a smaller market.  There appear to be two reasons that companies want to by naming rights:

 

1. It actually is a national advertising opportunity rather than focused on local sales. The name of your company on a stadium appears at least 8 times a year on TV and in countless newspapers when stadium names are listed.  This is not focused advertising that makes a pitch like a commercial, but in a competitive advertising context like America there actually is some real value to simply having your name mentioned a number of times that has been shown to be of some real value.

 

The second reason is braggin rights.  Your company shows that it is a mover and a shaker and a major league property because it canafford this luxury item.

 

I think Indy had previously long ago sold the naming rights to their old stadium for a million bucks a year and the new deal calls for them to get something like $10 million. Not bad for something that really costs the team nothing to do beyond putting up a few signs (though a team can probably even shift this cost sway from the).

 

I think the real ticket here though is that the NFL reaffirmed and reloaded the fund that teams can reach into for help building their own stadium.  Buffalo's new Mayor Brown just mentioned the idea of building a new waterfront football stadium.  For folks interested in keeping the Bills here in perpetuity, having this NFL fund invest in helping the Bills build a new stadium here is one ofr linking the Bills to an asset they cannot move and thus make it harder for the Bills to leave town.

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Who's Ealph?

[CJPearl2]

Wow, someone has a lot of free time.....boring........(yawn...)

[Chalkie Gerzowski]

I Just Saved A Bunch Of Money On My Car Insurance By Switching To Geico Field At Orchard Park.

 

 

[Hammered a Lot]

I thought Erkies trade is Banking.

[kasper13]

Sell the naming rights to the Native Americans. In fact, sell the team and the stadium to them. They could call it Smokin Joe's Stadium and they could turn the field house into a casino. Everything would be tax free- tickets, parking and smokes. Talk about a license to print money.

[fmr60]

I believe your article is well done. The big money teams could point to the fact that the Bills get no $ for the naming rights at this time. An extra $5 to $10 million would help the Bills quite a bit........maybe. No one is certain just how the new CBA works. Don't ask Ralph cause he doesn't know.

[MadBuffaloDisease]

I believe your article is well done.  The big money teams could point to the fact that the Bills get no $ for the naming rights at this time.  An extra $5 to $10 million would help the Bills quite a bit........maybe. No one is certain just how the new CBA works.  Don't ask Ralph cause he doesn't know.

"An extra $5 to $10 million"...a year? LMAO! At best Ralph will get $2M a year, and probably $1.5M, from naming rights. Hardly the windfall it seems (not that he shouldn't do it, at the very least to shut everyone up about how he's losing SO much money from NOT doing it).

[Ray]

MadBuffalo is right. Selling the naming rights for 1-2M/year--wow less than 1% of the salary cap. Sorry folks, it will not generate any near the revenue people want it too. Rich Products has better things to do than spend 5-10M/year on naming rights of the stadium. Maybe 1M/year. That will buy you a back-up TE in free agancy.

[PromoTheRobot]

Let's all take a collection and name it "The Two Bills Drive.com Stadium Wall Park!"

 

PTR

[Pyrite Gal]

"An extra $5 to $10 million"...a year?  LMAO!  At best Ralph will get $2M a year, and probably $1.5M, from naming rights.  Hardly the windfall it seems (not that he shouldn't do it, at the very least to shut everyone up about how he's losing SO much money from NOT doing it).

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I checked for real #s regarding Indy's sell of their stadium naming rights. The actual take they got averages out to $6.1 million year from an oil company which is a n increase over the $1 million a year they previously got.

 

The question as to what should the Bills/Erie County reasonably expect if they marketed our rights. The general answer which is correct is that they should expect what the market can beat.

 

The specific real question is how much can the market bear?

 

Obviously there is no definite answer to this, but it would seem that price negotiations would start at the going rate of what was the price for a similar product and they would move up or down from there.

 

My sense is that negotiations for Bills naming rights start at the price recently obtained by Indy and go down from there. However, depending upon the availability of a buyer (real world negotiations will simply determine the outcome) I would not be shocked to see it nor drop too far. My reasoning is:

 

1. Reasons price would be lower than Indy:

 

A. Naming rights for a new stadium rather than the good ol Ralph

B. Exposure likely to be higher in the immediate term as Indy is doing well.

 

2. Reasons folks may see as important, but I think are inconsequesntial

 

A. Buffalo is a small market: Yes this is true but tbe Indy deal shows that these sales are for national purposes and mere membership in the national item of the NFL is the driver, not the economic statuss of the resident City. Note that the Indy naming rights were bought by an oil co. This was not a local or even a consumer marketing purchase.

 

B. Indy is a better team and will provide more advertising opportunities with likely home playoff dates and Indy getting more national coverage. Yes, true now, but these are 10-20 year deals and the Colts/Indy positions will likely reverse over time as things change. Consider if you had used this same logic to purchase the 40ers naming rights or to demand a low price for the Panthers naming rights 10 years ago. The fortunes of a team will vary widely during this time.

 

3. Reasons the cost for the Bills rights might even be higher.

 

A. The NFL just signed a long-term CBA extension promising labor peace and a stable advertising environment.

B. Supply and demand. As long-term naming rights deals are getting done, renaming the Ralph is going to be one of the few opportunities left.

 

I simply do not think that one can be so certain the naming rights would only bring in a million or two.

[MadBuffaloDisease]

Well unless they're sold, we'll never actually know. Maybe Ralph is holding out for a new stadium and THEN to sell naming rights, like Jerry Jones is reportedly doing?

[Marv's Neighbor]

Maybe DUBAI PORTS WORLD would be interested. They even have an office in Lackawanna!

[The Dean]

Wow, someone has a lot of free time.....boring........(yawn...)

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Yeah, it's terrible that he took the time to REALLY answer the question instead of just making a stupid, off-the-cuff remark without the facts to back him up.

 

That's TERRIBLY boring. Who needs information.