It is cute people still dont understand transfers arent all paid in one go. £100m is a good amount. I suspect we will sort naming rights soon now Levy isnt there pissing about with it, which will bring more in.
Maybe, just maybe, they are telling the truth and will give it a go.
It isnt really strange to announce it either, it will appear on Companies House, so it wont exactly be a secret.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with naming rights if anything happens at all.
An initial question – is it all that? A good current stadium-only, football-related deal would be something like £10m/year for, say, 10 years. It's really not so much in the scheme of things. We can see why it's rumoured that Levy wanted a significantly bigger deal, like £25m/year, or not at all.
I wondered whether we should be waiting for more on-pitch progress. Maybe. But Bayern Munich's Allianz deal is no more than £10m/year, for example.
Our multi-use stadium may be of more value, and that's a developing story with the recent increase of non-football events from a 16/year to a 30/year maximum. We're unique because of our NFL involvement, which means we should in principle be after a name with a US as well as a UK profile.
Then there's all the talk that media rights income could increase substantially with the involvement of the streaming 'giants'. This would have implications for naming rights.
It's said that there are benefits in the 'brand value' of the 'Tottenham Hotspur Stadium' name itself, which the club may be able to exploit further. There are reasons why, for example, Man Utd or R Madrid are not selling naming rights for Old Trafford or the Bernabeu – at least not yet. Barça's decision to go with Spotify for c. €20m /year, which appears to include a shirt front deal, may have been forced by their financial problems.
It's worth asking whether we might have a different strategy. For example, the
Sport Illustrated association with the East Stand might open up opportunities for other parts of the stadium. Whether this is relevant to naming of the stadium as a whole is another question.
Given the relatively low level of naming rights deals even for super clubs, and given the state of flux in football finance, I'd be adopting a wait and see strategy.