Super Bowl makes Sun Life Stadium best-ever naming launch

Can anyone remember a more impressive launch for a new stadium naming rights deal than the debut of Sun Life Stadium two weeks ago?

To say the timing of the deal was fortuitous is an understatement. Canada's Sun Life Financial announced the reported 10-year, $40 million US naming rights agreement -- in which the first five years and the first $20 million US are guaranteed -- on January 19th, just 12 days before the NFL's 2010 Pro Bowl and less than three weeks before Super Bowl XLIV, which goes this Sunday at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Lakes, Fla.

In sheer North American television exposure alone, the one-two punch of the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl in Miami give the Sun Life corporate moniker the strongest media launch in stadium naming history. The Pro Bowl itself was a significant prime time coming out party for the Sun Life Stadium name, with ESPN scoring an average of 12.3 million viewers in the U.S. (38 per cent more than the afternoon audience for last year's NFL all-star game in Honolulu).

Sun Life Stadium basked in the glow of the largest Pro Bowl television audience in 10 years, despite being up against the 52nd Grammy Awards on CBS.

The television spotlight will increase at least tenfold this Sunday, when a U.S. audience of more than 100 million will tune in to CBS to watch NFL MVP Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts square off in Miami against Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. As the world's second largest single-day annual sports event behind only the UEFA Champions League European club soccer final, the Super Bowl should draw a global television audience of more than 160 million in 230 countries to the action at Sun Life Stadium.

More than 80 per cent of that will come from the U.S., Mexico and Canada where the Super Bowl is king of North American sports properties.

Nonetheless, the Super Bowl television blitz this weekend will only underline how much of a bargain Sun Life struck in naming the 23-year-old stadium. With 30-second commercials on CBS sold out at an average of about $2.7 million US a pop, Sun Life will get more than its money's worth in one fell swoop.

Depending on the number of times Sun Life is mentioned and its new stadium graphics shown during the Super Bowl telecast and lead-in programming on CBS, ESPN and NFL Network, the case can be made that the Toronto-based insurance company will receive media value that is at least equal to the first five years of its naming rights deal. That does not include valuation of the billions of media impressions that Sun Life Stadium will receive this week in print and on the internet, along with radio.

Rarely does a stadium naming provide the kind of immediate return on investment that this one does for Sun Life. Never before could one argue that a long-term naming rights deal will almost pay for itself in the first month, let alone the first year.

The Super Bowl timing is only one example of how this deal is a winner for Sun Life. The low cost of the sponsorship is the headliner here. Sun Life paid about one-fifth the $20 million US per year that Citi Financial has invested in Citi Field ($400 million US over 20 years) for the new home of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball. It paid well less than the going rate for NFL stadiums, including the $7 million US per year that Bank of America did for the home of the Carolina Panthers.

For just more than half that, Sun Life locked up the home of the NFL's Miami Dolphins, the iconic Miami Hurricanes of college football and -- for at least another two seasons -- the Florida Marlins of MLB. The strong brand equity of the football teams playing at Sun Life Stadium is another positive, as is its annual role as host of the FedEx Orange Bowl in the BCS and the stadium's own history as the first of its kind in the NFL built entirely with private funds.

Another strength is the inclusion of a philanthropic component to the deal. Sun Life is donating $250,000 per year to the Miami Dolphins Foundation, a community investment play that gives the sponsorship deal more legs.

Yet perhaps the best part of this deal is the naming itself. Unlike awkward names such as Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona, or unwieldy titles like the former Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland (now re-named McAfee Coliseum, home of baseball's Athletics), Sun Life is a smooth, two-syllable stadium title. Mostly though, it works because it's such a natural fit for sunny South Florida. It's actually appropriate for the market and that will go a long way with fans of the Dolphins and the Hurricanes and the NFL and college football.

Given the economics and the aesthetics, along with the 145-year history of the Toronto-based company, this one has the makings of a good long-term relationship (at least for the 10 years of this deal). That's good news for a venue that's had seven names -- Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Park, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphins Stadium, Dolphin Stadium, Landshark Stadium and now Sun Life Stadium -- since 1987.

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