Aviva the model for Thomond
The timing and circumstances may not be ideal but the man who helped deliver more than €40m to IRFU coffers for the Lansdowne Road Stadium naming rights believes if anyone can pull off a similar deal for Thomond Park it is Munster Rugby.
A sensitive and unpalatable issue for many in Munster, the subject of selling Thomond Park’s naming rights has returned to the top of the province’s commercial agenda. The Branch announced this week they were starting a painstaking process to find a suitor having announced a projected deficit of €1m for the year ending June 30, 2012.
Padraig Slattery, the managing director of Slattery Communications, led the sponsorship brief on the IRFU’s sale of the new Lansdowne Road Stadium naming rights to Aviva in a 10-year deal worth more than €40m in 2009, a year out from its official opening.
Thomond Park was redeveloped between 2007 and 2008 but the Branch opted not to go for a naming rights deal due to strong feelings against it.
Three years on since the Aviva deal and the economic climate is strikingly different. Slattery believes landing a similar deal will be a “big ask” on a number of fronts.
“Personally I don’t think it’s a solution, no,” Slattery told the Irish Examiner.
“Naming rights, there are occasional ones being done now and it’s not to say it couldn’t be done but it would be difficult now, given that the redevelopment has happened. People are back in there now and they’ve settled into it again as Thomond Park. I think they’d find it very difficult to find someone who would take it on at this stage.”
The sports marketing expert said the Aviva Stadium deal had been executed in textbook fashion.
“A fundamental principle of naming rights is that either it’s a new stadium, which would obviously be the ideal, or it’s a major refurb where fans and people going in there are getting a new experience, it’s something that they look forward to and want.
“That was the case with the Aviva. The acceptance of the naming rights of Aviva on Lansdowne Road has been phenomenal and the main reason for that, in fairness to Aviva, they did it as part of a very well planned programme. They completed the naming rights deal almost 12 months out from the stadium opening and had a slow unveil of it. All the external perimeter hoarding carried their name for that full 12 months and they didn’t need that long but that was textbook and ideal.
“You can do it three months out or even coinciding with the new venue opening.”
However, Slattery did not rule out a corporate backer coming forward for a naming rights deal over Thomond Park, even in the current economic climate.
“I know there were people interested in the naming rights a long time ago when Thomond was being redeveloped. Whether they would have gone through with it of course is a different question and now would be difficult.
“It’s a vastly different climate economically now and companies tend not to have big budgets but there’s two sides of the coin on this and if anywhere has a value it’s Thomond Park.
“But in truth, in my view it would be pretty difficult to get a naming partner for Thomond Park now for those combination of reasons. One, it’s been open and up and running for three years and people have settled into it, and secondly the economics of it.”
Munster are also exploring the possibility of selling naming rights for individual stands at the 26,500-capacity Limerick stadium. Thomond Park bosses have up to now avoided any naming of the two stands, with a combined 15,000 seats, other than calling them East and West and selling their naming rights was seen by Slattery as a more realistic option for chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald and his staff to pursue.
“The option that may be there for Thomond Park is that you can do stand naming rights. They’re not as lucrative, obviously, but they’re possibilities and more palatable. The one thing is that the people there like Garrett Fitzgerald will be aware to all of that and of all the organisations that have been operating, Munster have been phenomenal in terms of their approach to commerciality. It’s an extremely successful franchise and people will want to be associated with Munster, there’s no doubt at all about that.
“So if it’s Munster it’s definitely not all bad but I do feel a naming rights deal for Munster now would be a big ask.”
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