Schools Continue to Pursue Naming Rights for Athletic Facilities

Soon after Aaron Zupka took over as athletic director at Milford High School, he knew his department would need to produce creative fundraising ideas. Two months after he started his new position, local voters in his school’s eastern Cincinnati county defeated a bond issue request to fund a $98 million construction project. The bond not only would have built a new middle school and auditorium but replaced several athletic facilities.

After the district researched why taxpayers shot down the May 2019 measure – concluding residents wanted more outside funding – the issue went back to the ballot in 2021 but asked for a $55.9 million bond with the lone ask of replacing the middle school. In addition to the bond, $11.5 million in co-funding from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission was approved for the project.

The updated request was approved, and taxpayers had to pay around $86.45 in an annual tax increase as opposed to the $164.50 outlined in the original proposal.

In the end, the money to upgrade and fix athletic facilities for the high school of 2,000 students would need to come from elsewhere.

Zupka went the traditional sponsorship route of calling community businesses, asking for banner ads and the like, but one phone conversation went in a direction he did not anticipate.

Speaking with Andy Cullen, Zupka found the conversation turned from basic branding to renaming the football stadium after Cullen’s longstanding community business, Cullen Electric.

After going through the channels within his public school system, from speaking with committees to getting it passed by the school board, a 10-year agreement was reached to rename the stadium “Milford High School powered by Cullen Electric” in exchange for $210,000 from Cullen Electric over the course of the next decade.

Zupka said that while some of the money coming from the deal has been earmarked for projects, much of it has helped with athletics operations not accounted for in the regular budget.

While there is no hard data on how many high schools have these naming rights for high school venues, the case in Milford isn’t a one-off – and several athletic directors from across the country say the practice could become more commonplace in the future.

A Growing Trend?
As public funds continue to divert away from high school athletic budgets, more and more schools have revisited whether they should explore corporate naming sponsorships for athletic facilities as a way of filling funding gaps and/or enhancing their offerings to students and spectators.

In 2019, the Dallas Morning News found that nearly 20 school districts already had awarded naming rights for a football stadium or their athletic complex. As of 2022, at least five school districts in the suburban Milwaukee area had corporate sponsorship naming rights in place, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In Florida this past August, the Charlotte County School Board adopted a policy whereby its schools can sell naming rights. Immediately, two schools had deals in place for a combined $120,000, Gulf Shore Business reported.

David Kelley, PhD, CMAA, teaches classes in sport finance, athletic fundraising, and sport facilities and event management at the University of Cincinnati as program coordinator of the Online Master’s Degree in Sport Administration Program.

As part of his coursework, Kelley emphasizes trends in professional athletics always drips down to the college and high school levels – including corporate businesses wanting to attach their name to athletic facilities. And when it comes to high schools engaging in corporate sponsorship naming deals, “The toothpaste is out of the tube,” Kelley said.

“Anytime a public source of funds like taxes is either scaled back or taken away, a form of privatization will naturally have to occur,” he said. “So, if the bond levy fails, and they’re not able to pass the bond, and they’re not getting as much money from the budget toward extracurricular activities … the money, if you’re going to stay operational, has to come from somewhere. “

NFHS data has found high school sports and performing arts and activities impact more than 12 million students nationwide. Examinations of various school districts’ budget information show that activity programs make up exceedingly small percentages of school budgets despite athletics acting as the front door for a school to the public.

In the 2014-15 school year, the city of Chicago’s Public School Board of Education’s budget was $4.93 billion, while the activity programs portion was $17.6 million. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, activity programs received $6.33 million of the overall $7.27 billion budget for 2014-15. Finally, in the Miami–Dade, Florida School District, its Board of Education had a 2014-15 overall budget of $3.7 billion, while setting aside $17.2 million for activity programs.

Despite the countless benefits of extracurricular activities – including athletics serving as the “front porch” between the school and community – many programs are still underfunded, with public schools especially feeling the pinch.

Kelley encourages his students to get creative in how they think about fundraising, and said the current generation of college students is coming in and doesn’t know what it’s like to not have a stadium sponsored because of the teams they follow in professional and college sports. Zupka was one of Kelley’s students who took his coursework and used it in his professional life.

When looking at what types of schools are engaging in naming rights deals, Kelley said that the areas he has seen that most often engage in these practices are suburbs outside major cities, and the more urban and rural schools tend to struggle more with funding.

Jay Gifford, executive director of the Kansas Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (KIAAA) and athletic director at Dodge City High School, said his school does not engage in sponsorship naming rights for facilities but has seen it at other schools. Gifford said he believes the public has become more open to the idea overall of including sponsorship in stadium and facility names, and part of that is because most states have postseason events at larger venues used by professional sports teams.

“I still think there’s a lot of hesitation to naming facilities that they use public moneys to buildings,” Gifford said. “… I think what people have figured out is there was a perception that if somebody put their name on that building, they either own that building or built that building. I think now it’s happened so much in what a facility changes names, it really lets people know that is simply someone paying a lot of money to advertise on the outside.”

While Dodge City hasn’t delved into corporate naming rights, Gifford said his department currently looks at getting as many special events, such as tournaments and shootouts, naming sponsorships.

Where to Start?
For some schools, the thought of navigating corporate sponsorship naming rights deals for athletic facilities is overwhelming before even picking up the phone or responding to an email. To help navigate some of the challenges, the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) has created different courses on its website directly addressing the topic and provides educational best practices.

Dr. Doug Kuhlmann, head of school at Lutheran High School in St. Peter’s, Missouri, teaches one of those classes for the NIAAA. Kuhlmann said that a key starting point for any school would be to have a plan and realistic expectations – not every deal will be for a six-figure sum – and public schools will oftentimes have more hurdles than private schools when getting a deal done.

Kuhlmann said one major shift he has seen is that businesses are reaching out to school districts more often for sponsorship deals than the other way around. According to Kuhlmann, that makes it even more imperative that a school has a plan in place for when opportunities present themselves.

Schools need to be extremely careful with whom they engage, especially regarding naming rights, and are in the driver’s seat when it comes to dictating the terms of a contract. Effective communication is also needed between athletic directors, administrators and stakeholders when making these types of decisions.

If a deal does get done, Zupka also emphasized the importance of making sure that the school holds up its end of the bargain to make sure both parties stay happy.

For schools interested in exploring naming rights deals, several athletic directors said they believe that speaking with existing community partners is a good way to get the ball rolling, and to reach out to schools that have already gone through the process of obtaining sponsorship naming rights to help with the process.