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Football Sports Marketing Premier League

Tottenham Hotspur aiming for £400m naming rights deal to help bankroll cost of new stadium

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

February 15, 2017 | 4 min read

Tottenham Hotspur are planning a £400m deal for the naming rights to their new stadium and are prepared to drop all references to White Hart Lane in order to secure the most money from a potential deal.

Tottenham Hotspur stadium

A naming rights partner is integral to bankrolling the new £750m stadium

The Premier League club is in the process of seeking a naming rights partner to help bankroll its £750m stadium which is due to open in August 2018.

The London club’s chairman, Daniel Levy, has stated that they are aiming to raise upwards of £400m from the deal.

While the new venue remains on the same site that has served as the club’s home since 1899, Levy revealed to the Times that Spurs are prepared to abandon all reference of the current White Hart Lane name and allow the sponsor to have full title rights in order to ensure maximise value for the deal.

Funding for the project will also come from the long-term partnership the club has with the NFL to host two games per year for the next 10 years.

Tottenham are understood to have spoken to more than 300 companies about possible partnerships, however a deal has yet to be announced. A naming rights deal will play a pivotal role in funding the new stadium alongside the NFL tie-up, advanced ticket sales and commercial partnerships for the premium areas of the venue.

Joanna Porter, managing partner of strategy and insight at HSE Cake, shed light on how the football club's push for a naming rights partner could pan out: "There are broadly two types of potential naming rights strategy. One leads with brand engagement, the other puts a higher emphasis on generating brand awareness.The O2 and Wembley connected by EE are good examples of brands using venues to engage with new and existing customers, by seamlessly showcasing core service attributes in to the relationship.

"Then there's the other type of sponsor who wants to use football's huge media numbers to create broad awareness with a new or foreign audience. The decision to offer a clean name potentially helps Spurs' chances of finding this type of partner at a higher price point."

Tottenham’s London rivals Chelsea are reportedly adopting a different strategy for their own stadium plans. The club received planning permission to build a 60,000-seat stadium on the site of Stamford Bridge last month but is insisting that a reference to their historic home must be included in any agreement.

When discussions began in 2009, Chelsea’s chief executive at the time Ron Gourlay made it clear that the Stamford Bridge name was a key condition to any deal.

Naming rights deals have become something of a crowded marketplace in the capital with West Ham still unable to find a title sponsor for their new home six months after moving to the former Olympic stadium.

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