Itsme
07-06-2005, 05:27 AM
SCHOOL DISTRICT TO SELL BUILDING NAMING RIGHTS
Marketers Offered Chance to Brand Elementary School
July 05, 2005
A school district in suburban Detroit has decided to sell naming rights to its buildings -- including a new elementary school -- as a way to offset the one-two punch of rising education costs, and decreasing public funds. The Plymouth-Canton school board voted unanimously June 28 to consider commercial naming opportunities for everything from the new school to athletic fields to events such as the prom.
It’s not exactly a first: A school district in New Jersey sold the naming rights to its high school gymnasium to a local Shop-Rite, while the Grapevine-Colleyville school district in Texas has offered advertising space on school buses, sporting venues and a middle-school roof.
Sponsorship experts say it’s hard to pin down a number for naming rights to a school because of the many variables -- size of district and wealth of community, for example -- but officials in Plymouth-Canton said that if they pursued a sponsor they’d seek a 51% investment, meaning a marketer would probably have to pony up $7.5 million of the $15 million cost of building the new elementary school.
Fed-Ex Elementary?
But replacing George Washington Junior High or Martin Luther King Magnet School with Fed-Ex Elementary or Nike Public School is taking the trend to a new -- and to some, troubling -- stage.
Marketers Offered Chance to Brand Elementary School
July 05, 2005
A school district in suburban Detroit has decided to sell naming rights to its buildings -- including a new elementary school -- as a way to offset the one-two punch of rising education costs, and decreasing public funds. The Plymouth-Canton school board voted unanimously June 28 to consider commercial naming opportunities for everything from the new school to athletic fields to events such as the prom.
It’s not exactly a first: A school district in New Jersey sold the naming rights to its high school gymnasium to a local Shop-Rite, while the Grapevine-Colleyville school district in Texas has offered advertising space on school buses, sporting venues and a middle-school roof.
Sponsorship experts say it’s hard to pin down a number for naming rights to a school because of the many variables -- size of district and wealth of community, for example -- but officials in Plymouth-Canton said that if they pursued a sponsor they’d seek a 51% investment, meaning a marketer would probably have to pony up $7.5 million of the $15 million cost of building the new elementary school.
Fed-Ex Elementary?
But replacing George Washington Junior High or Martin Luther King Magnet School with Fed-Ex Elementary or Nike Public School is taking the trend to a new -- and to some, troubling -- stage.