Los Angeles-based company AEG, which already owns shares of the Lakers, Kings, and Galaxy, remains undaunted in his quest to bring NFL football back to LA. They’re moving forward in their plans to build a stadium in Downtown Los Angeles and they’ve convinced Farmers Insurance to purchase naming rights for the 68,000 capacity stadium that has yet to be built.
No Team? No Stadium? No Plans? No Problem For Farmers Insurance.
The proposed billion-dollar stadium will be called Farmers Field. Some of the parties involved in the deal were touting it as the largest naming-rights contract ever. Farmers CMO Kevin Kelso called it an exceptional branding play, especially crucial now, with the always-competitive insurance market spending more than ever on media and sports marketing assets.
The announcement in the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center, the site of the proposed stadium. It’s not unprecedented for naming rights to be sold before a stadium was completed, though it is unprecedented given that there are assurances there will be a tenant for the stadium once it’s ready. The most lucrative naming-rights purchase in history might be a little lackluster if there’s no team to play there.
Farmers CEO Kevin Kelso doesn’t seem concerned about such trifles.
“The contract addresses a number of contingencies,’’ Kelso said. “The reality is there’s very little likelihood that an NFL team is not going to come into this stadium when it’s built. I am not worried about that.”
So if that's the case, now it becomes a question of whether or not the NFL will expand or move another team (Hi Vikings!).
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