This is going to make people sick.
The good folks over at Citigroup signed a 400 million dollar deal with the New York Mets for the naming right to that team’s new stadium for the next 20 years. That it of itself is not news, big companies do this kind of thing all of the time but the Citi Field del is different, very different then all the others.
Not only has the company bee so badly mismanaged they need federal bailout, for US taxpayers, to stay in business, but they are overpaying the Mets for the rights to name their new stadium, overpaying by a lot. If this is any indication of how this company is being run it leaves little doubt why it is teetering on the brink of collapse.
400 million over 20 years is 20 million dollars a year. However in the game of Stadium naming rights Citi Corp has paid more then double the cost of the next highest stadium naming rights deal.
According to ESPN.com Reliant Stadium in Houston Texas was the most expensive naming rights deal in the sports universe at 10 million dollars per year. In fact most of these deals average between 1-5 million dollars.
Granted this new stadium is in New York City a huge TV market (in fact the largest) but so is Los Angeles (2nd) where Staples is only paying 5.8 million dollars a year for the rights for the home of the Lakers.
On top of that that the stadiums in Chicago are priced at 1.8 million dollars for the United Center home of the Chicago Bulls, and 3.4 million for US Cellular field home of the White Sox.
After Reliant Stadium the next most expensive deal is Phillips arena in Atlanta at 9.3 million dollars per year.
For Philadelphia the fourth biggest TV market Citizens bank park home of the Phillies is getting 2.3 million dollars per year, The Wachovia Center home of the 76ers and flyers gets 1.4 million bucks a year, and Lincoln finical field is nabbing the Eagles organization 6.7 million dollars per year.
The facts are the facts and in the case of Citi Field we now know that they vastly overpaid for the rights to put their corporate logo all over that place. If this is how they conduct all of their business no wonder they need bailout money.
On top of that they are paying an unspecified amount to sponsor one of Roush Fenway Racing’s Nationwide Series team for the full 2009 NASCAR season. The price tag for that venture is at least 15 million dollars.
When we add all of this up that is 35 million dollars or ten million dollars less then the 45 million Citigroup has already received in federal bailout money.
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