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MLS Marketing

Banc of California agrees record naming rights deal with Los Angeles Football Club

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By Tony Connelly | Sports Marketing Reporter

August 24, 2016 | 2 min read

Banc of California has agreed a record naming rights deal with Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) ahead of their 2018 entry to Major League Soccer (MLS).

LAFC Banc of California

Banc of California LAFC

The banking group signed a 15 year deal worth a MLS record of $100.5m, which will see the club receive an estimated $6.7m per-season.

LAFC’s 22,000 seater stadium, to be built on the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, will be named the Banc of California Stadium upon its completion in early 2018.

Banc of California will become the team’s exclusibe banking partner and will have a branch homed on site. The group has already participated in a $180m syndicated loan, and plans to lend to the stadium construction project’s subcontractors.

The partnership between the two is somewhat unsurprising given the banks ties between the franchise’s backers.

“We have a lot of relationships with the ownership group,” said Steven Sugarman, chief executive of Banc of California. “We’re probably zero or one degree of separation between myself and everyone in the ownership group.”

Sugarman’s brother is an investor in the club, and the son-in-law of LAFC’s executive chairman Peter Guber, while Sugarman himself works alongside club president Tom Penn on the Los Angeles 2024 Olympic bid organising committee.

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