US University, Rutgers, is expected to sell its football stadium naming rights to a New Jersey-based company for between $1.5 million and $2 million a year, according to press reports.
In an interview with Bloomberg, T.J. Nelligan, founder of Nelligan Sports Marketing, Inc., the exclusive marketing agent for Rutgers athletics, said that four companies are interested in putting their name on the stadium in Piscataway for 15 to 30 years. In addition to the naming rights the sponsor is expected to receive tickets, a stadium suite, year-round advertising and could also secure the rights to sell products and services to the university.
"We want this deal to be about more than just putting a company's name on the stadium in exchange for money,'' Nelligan told Bloomberg. ``We want to create internships for our students, we want the company to send their executives to our MBA program, and we want to help generate real business for the company.''
Rutgers will become just the eighth school in college football's top division to sell naming rights to a corporation. Other top-division schools that have sold naming rights include Louisville's Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, Texas Tech's Jones AT&T Stadium, Central Florida's Bright House Networks Stadium, Wake Forest's BB&T Field, Troy's Movie Gallery Veterans Stadium, Syracuse's Carrier Dome and Akron's InfoCision Stadium, which is scheduled to open next season.
