Sports Direct Arena

cheets64 · 9 Nov 2011 at 23:50

Newcastle United have renamed St James' Park the Sports Direct Arena after owner Mike Ashley's company.

The club say the change is a temporary measure to "showcase" the sponsorship opportunity to "interested parties".

Alpherah · 9 Nov 2011 at 23:53

Just came to post this.
My oh my!

BaZ87 · 9 Nov 2011 at 23:57

It's only a matter of time before it's the norm. Near enough evey new stadium is sponsored and with City, Newcastle and Chelsea in the not too distant future all renaming current stadiums, it won't be long before others follow suit.

Alpherah · 9 Nov 2011 at 23:59

BaZ87 said:
It's only a matter of time before it's the norm. Near enough evey new stadium is sponsored and with City, Newcastle and Chelsea in the not too distant future all renaming current stadiums, it won't be long before others follow suit.

This is a special case. Renaming the stadium after MA's own company, even if temp, considering how much the fans 'love' the guy is bound to create some fireworks.

Wzd · 10 Nov 2011 at 00:02

They might as well call it the Primark Arena!

SoAdCrAzY · 10 Nov 2011 at 00:04

The Ginsters Pasties Arena!

stoke1863 · 10 Nov 2011 at 00:07

You can not blame clubs for using sponserd names. That is fine when a new stadium is built but for a stadium that has been as famous as ST james and has been standing longer than anyone who supports newcastle its a discrace imo

I think we got lucky with our The Britannia stadium sounds like its not sponserd so not too bad

cheets64 · 10 Nov 2011 at 00:29

To be fair, all new stadiums get a sponser name, I dont think I have seen a century old place get a new name.

Quite sad to see.

nemtizz · 10 Nov 2011 at 01:22

Nobody in their right mind will ever refer to it as that.

It'll always be St James Park.

FrankJH · 10 Nov 2011 at 03:16

ad said:
Nobody in their right mind will ever refer to it as that.

It'll always be St James Park.

It may well take time - but once commentators start regularly referring to it as that, it wil seep into younger viewers and go from there

to be honest it sounds awful to me, but Im just hoping Old Trafford remains just that for my lifetime lol

No1newts · 10 Nov 2011 at 07:31

*sigh*

Ashley strikes again.

He builds up the good will, the fans have become willing to forgive, if not forget, then he pushes ahead with this despite how much anger it caused last time. I'm sure he just wants to be hated

I can see no business sense in naming it after his own company other than self promotion. I would even be annoyed if a huge company offered a couple hundred million never mind this.

/slow clap for Ashley PR machine :rolleyes:

platypus · 10 Nov 2011 at 07:38

No1newts said:
I can see no business sense in naming it after his own company other than self promotion. I would even be annoyed if a huge company offered a couple hundred million never mind this.

The business sense is that he's going to inject £10 million a year into the club from his company to pay for the sponsorship, at least according to BBC news. He may own both but they're separate businesses.

Irish_Tom · 10 Nov 2011 at 08:13

lolmikeashley :rolleyes:

It will always be St. James' Park!

As No1newts says, he was being a good boy so far this season. Kept quiet and let the team do their job. Now he's stirred all the anger up again.

My biggest fear is that the inevitable backlash from the fans effects the player's moral and our performance suffers.

Liquid_Entity · 10 Nov 2011 at 08:29

Panzerbjorn said:
l
My biggest fear is that the inevitable backlash from the fans effects the player's moral and our performance suffers.

hopefully, then 3rd/4th is ours for the taking

COYS

edit: on a serious note, I hate all these stadium name changes. They call it progress, I call it just another nail in the coffin of tradition.

Mucky_Pup · 10 Nov 2011 at 09:03

Moses said:
The ridiculous thing isn't the renaming of the stadium... the ridiculous thing is Newcastle supporters still hating Mike Ashley!

How so? Lot of people stopped hating him, I haven't heard "get out of our club" being sung at st James' recently. People are happy with the results from the team, happy that he offered tickets for the rest of the season for £200. Then he's gone and done this renamed something that has had that name for over 100 years, it's pathetic, all it's done is kicked off people hating him again, nothing's as fickle as a football fan. All the FCB has done is shot himself and his investment in the foot.

Lighters · 10 Nov 2011 at 09:22

cant believe this I am actually gutted!

Showboat · 10 Nov 2011 at 09:29

There is no company that would pay to have the stadium named after them at the minute.
If he names it after his own company for a few years, the fans will get used to it and a potential investor may take the risk, long term strategy!

I fail to see how this club is losing £35mill a year with all the players that have been sold, he must be rifling money out of the club at a furious rate... sadly all legally of course

a1ex2001 · 10 Nov 2011 at 09:44

Showboat said:
There is no company that would pay to have the stadium named after them at the minute.
If he names it after his own company for a few years, the fans will get used to it and a potential investor may take the risk, long term strategy!

Excellent point I hadn't thought about it that way, it makes sense for him to take the PR hit as the Newcastle fans all hate him anyway and break the ground for another company to bring outside cash in. Not to mention given the amount of money he has lost as Newcastle owner naming the stadium doesn't seem to muchto ask.

Showboat said:
I fail to see how this club is losing £35mill a year with all the players that have been sold, he must be rifling money out of the club at a furious rate... sadly all legally of course

Saldy he's probably not massively on the take it's just football clubs have no idea about balancing books I always thought it was a simple case of balancing income against outgoings but football seems to think it's better to spend twice as much as you have.

Steveh_monkey · 10 Nov 2011 at 10:11

Urgh. I guess it makes a kind of cynical depressing business sense but it's still pretty unpalatable.

It's not just a bit of the clubs history he's flogging off to the highest bidder, but also part of the cities heritage. SJP in addition to being located right at the centre of the town is perhaps one of 3 well recognised landmarks in the city along with Greys Monument and the Tyne Bridge. It's takes some nerve to try and rename that.

[DOD]Asprilla · 10 Nov 2011 at 10:53

Showboat said:
I fail to see how this club is losing £35mill a year with all the players that have been sold, he must be rifling money out of the club at a furious rate... sadly all legally of course

Or maybe it's just a question of chronology because the last published accounts which showed that £33.5m loss were to 30th June 2010 and are for the season we spent in the Championship with it's attendant 39% drop in revenue. Those accounts were also published before any of the big name sales which took place in the 10 / 11 season.