Naming rights are a way for professional sports organizations to increase revenue for their organization by selling the name of the stadium they play in.
Over the last three decades we have seen this become the norm around the Country including, of course, Riverfront Stadium becoming "Great American Ball Park".
Paul Brown Stadium, the home of our Cincinnati Bengals, became "Paycor Stadium" for roughly between 8-12 million. (Speaking for all Cincinnati fans we do not care what the stadium is called as long as we can pay the salaries of a competitive football team.)
Naming Rights Fail
One of the most curious name for a venue in Cincinnati is "Mega Corp Pavillion" for a music venue. The dynamic nature of music and art often fly in the face of the static Corporate need for static processes and routines. When some of the best artists in the Country come to Cincinnati to play it is often laughed about that they are playing in "MEGA CORP" Pavillion. A peculiar name for a music venue.
FC Cincinnati Stadium Sells Naming Rights
https://www.wcpo.com/sports/fc-cincinnati/fc-cincinnatis-west-end-stadium-has-a-new-name
FC Cincinnati Knows the Value of the Name
The financial genius that is FC Cincinnati, leveraged an important aspect of soccer (futbol) that no other American sport has, that is global recognition, to create revenue that helps field their competitive team.
While FC Cincinnati recieves tens of millions of dollars from the naming rights of the FC Cincinnnati Stadium, FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner recieves branding on the inside and outside of the stadium including the very cool fin lighting facing Central Parkway, and a private branded bar and private box inside the stadium. Here FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner can host and foster new relationships with potential clients from around the world. But Most importantly, FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner recieves global brand name recognition. An importance this marketing blogger can not stress enough to it's effectiveness to grow sales.
"I've Heard Of Them!"
Any marketing agent will tell you that name recognition plays an important role when people make choices. If a person has heard of a company before, they are far more likely to choose that company over brands they have never heard of before.
National Awareness
Last week when the USMNT, US Mens National Team, took on Canada at FC Cincinnati's Stadium, phrase searches on Google for "TQL Stadium" spiked very high in States and areas outside of Cincinnati including:
- California,
- Texas,
- Goergia ![TQL Stadium mentions on Google]
Global Brand Awareness
While this may be news to some Cincinnatians, "Soccer" is called futbol around the world and is the most popular sport in the World. It did not take much to recognize the amount of Guatamalans in Cincinnati last week when Guatemala took on Jamaica at FC Cincinnati's Stadium.
Super Bowl VS World Cup 2022
Lets compare the reach and viewership between NFL Football Super Bowl and the World Cup. Granted, the World Cup only takes place every 4 years, still, the scale of viewership helps demonstrate the global reach soccer has and the benefit it has for local companies working on the global stage.
2022 Super Bowl TV Viewership: 118 million
USA: SuperBowl: 113 million viewers. World Cup: 26 million viewers
Global: SuperBowl: 40 million World Cup: 1.474 Billion
1.474 Billion, with a "B"
https://theathletic.com/4198045/2023/02/15/super-bowl-world-cup-tv-ratings/
Stadium Design Gets Global Recognition
The brand on the FC Cincinnati stadium could not be happier to be the name of the stadium when, in Madrid Spain the World Football Summit named FC Cincinnati’s Stadium "Best Venue of 2022" at an awards event.
The brand that purchased the rights seems to be getting their money's worth especially when their business name is associated with world recognized awards like this. Name recognition is one thing but when there is also positive association, that the stadium is one of the best in the world, or the team is wins the MLS Cup, this is rocketfuel global endorsement that the company's competitors do not have.
https://www.fccincinnati.com/news/tql-stadium-wins-global-best-venue-award
Naming Rights Reaching Emerging Markets
The CONCACAF Soccer tournement is a playoff between Countries in North and South America as well as carribean islands an as of 2021, Qatar. https://www.concacaf.com/inside-concacaf/member-associations/
Logistics Need Growing In CONCACAF Markets
Global Markets are always evolving and manufacturing in Central America is being rapidly invested in as Global companies and governments are trying to manufacture their goods in Central America. This way shipping to the US economy is more cost effective and less likely to be interupted by global supply chain disruptions like pandemics or fuel shortages.
The World Is Watching
Mexico, Canada, Belize, and all of the carribean islands and Central America countries are watching the CONCACAF soccer tournement. As global manufactures look to make products in these countries so that shipping into the US economy is easier and less likely to be interuppted by global issues like pandemics, Total Quality Logistics is putting their name in the ears of purchasers, HR departments, investors, and decision makers around the globe associated with the world class, award winning stadium.
Global Impressions | Standard Impression Rates
Impressions of your brand name matter. Some would argue that any mention of your brand, good or bad, is good marketing. Impression marketing on Facebook, Google Display, and banner advertising typically cost less that conversion targeted ads but are still valueable and used immensely.
If Impression ads cost $10 per 1000 views (CPM), this would mean there is a 10$ CPM cost to the impression advertising.
It's reported that in last weeks US VS Canada USMNT soccer match at FC Cincinnati's Stadium that 3.7 million viewers watched the match. In this one game, if each person watching heard or saw the stadium name 4 times during the match then FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner earned 14.8 million brand impressions.
1.34 Million viewers on Fox Sports (United States of America) 2.32 Million viewers on Univision (Global)
with each viewer hearing or seeing FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner brand 5 times per the game. (Impressions) 18.5 million impressions of the FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner's brand. (Impressions would be higher once counts of media mentions, game follow up reporting and highlights, people looking about where the match is and about the stadium it is being played at, can generate a lot more brand mentions for this match.)
At a CPM of 10$, for this one USMNT game at FC Cincinnati's Stadium, FC Cincinnati's naming rights partner earned $185,000 in impression based advertising just on stadium mentions reaching people viewing the game on TV, in the countries they are looking to grow in.
US Mens National Team Games Big Winners
We can be grateful for the vision the ownership and managment of FC Cincinnati has to create an award winning soccer stadium that can host US Mens National Team Games. These games, compared to normal professional soccer lueage games, draw much more attention to the stadium, and our city.
What we are taking away is this:
- Soccer marketing provides access to a broader global market than MLB, or NFL, Hockey, Olympics.
- Soccer has very high viewership located all over the globe, especially in what some call emerging markets
- The logistics company & FC Cincinnati naming rights is a perfect match for both organizations it would seem.
It's clear that the leadership for both FC Cincinnati and their naming rights partner is top notch and on fire. We're grateful for both world renown organizations that, like us, work for the betterment of Cincinnati and the people, business owners, and families of Cincinnati, Ohio. USA.
Addition
Recently, while visiting the Catskill Mountains in the small town of Woodstock, NY we stopped in a little shop called Pallet Woodstock. Speaking to the owners of the shop when they asked where we are from they replied "Cincinnnati! We just went there! We went to the Cincinnati futbol stadium to see the World National match! We stayed in Kentucky though?".
So cool. People drove 11 hours to come to Cincinnati, stay in a hotel, eat at our resturuants, go to our bars, in order to go to a game at TQL Stadium. Awesome!
Strategic Solutions
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