Allen County is considering a sale of naming rights to War Memorial Coliseum, home of the Fort Wayne Komets (ECHL) and the Fort Wayne Mad Ants (D-League).
It’s not a new notion — Coliseum General Manager Randy Brown has been talking about it for years — but now there’s a specific prospectus being shopped around to prospective buyers. The city’s starting point is that naming rights for the arena are worth more than those purchased by Parkview Health for Parkview Field, the hugely successful home of the Fort Wayne TinCaps baseball team.
But now a “confidential” proposal prepared by the Coliseum – a copy of which was obtained by The News-Sentinel – offers naming rights to the arena for $350,000 per year for 10 years – a total of $3.5 million, or $500,000 more than Parkview Health paid in 2008 for a decade’s worth of publicity at the field that now bears its name. A 15-year commitment to the Coliseum could be had for $335,000 per year, at a total cost of $5.025 million.
The Coliseum’s presentation states that the system for determining the value of sponsorships was developed by IEG, a leading independent sponsorship analyst that has worked with more than 800 clients on nearly 1,500 properties worldwide. And the proposal is a good deal, the literature suggests, with total tangible and intangible benefits of the sponsorship worth $458,740 per year.
In addition to naming rights for the arena, sponsors would also receive mention in publications, marketing and interior signs, advertising at the top of the scoreboard, employee benefits and other opportunities. Exterior signs would be at the sponsor’s expense.
Also for sale: naming rights to food courts within the arena.