Newcastle set to rename St James Park the Sports Direct Arena

The Newcastle United board of directors seem to like to be hated on Tyneside.

Just when they are winning the Toon Army around they come and tell them that their historic ground is going to be renamed after chairman Mike Ashley’s company Sports Direct.

Historic

Newcastle United have played at St James Park since 1886 and to rename the ground seems a bit unsentimental to me. It seems that most Geordies are offended by the idea that their ground won’t be called St James Park anymore and are voicing their opinions on the matter.

Money

Naming St James Park after Sports Direct is apparently a ploy for Newcastle to attract outside companies to put their name to the Magpies stadium. That doesn’t make sense at all. The club could have came out and said that they were willing to rename the stadium after any interested company.

Whether its right or wrong to rename the stadium just sounds silly to me. And its really annoyed a lot of the Newcastle United supporters. If they are going to change the name they should have kept it as St James Park until they found somebody willing to pay the naming rights fee at least.

Newcastle are not gaining any extra money from the fact that it will be called the Sports Direct Arena because Newcastle’s chairman Mike Ashley owns the company.

Sense

It makes good financial sense to sell the naming rights to the stadium. It will bring in money that wasn’t previously coming in and hopefully benefit the club. Hopefully it will help the club grow and keep in the top half of the Premier League table.

However as a sentimental football fan it would take some time to get used to it be changed. I certainly wouldn’t like Goodison Park to be renamed. If the club decided to do it though I would have to get used to it. Everybody would know that it would always be Goodison to the people that actually matter, the fans. And I’m sure that’s how a lot of the Newcastle fans feel about it.

I’m torn on the issue really. I have always like St James Park. I’m not a Newcastle fan but if I was my heart would probably be saying that I wouldn’t want the ground to be renamed but my head would be saying it makes good financial sense, as it would bring in extra funds for the club to move forward.

Examples

People have used the examples of the Reebok Stadium and the Emirates Stadium of how grounds have been branded by companies. However these grounds are new grounds and didn’t have previous names or history. It wasn’t like Arsenal were still at Highbury or Bolton were still at Burnden Park and they have been renamed.

Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium is another example of branding a stadium with a company name. However Manchester City hadn’t been playing at the City of Manchester Stadium for long before this happened.

And the club only named it the Etihad Stadium so they could get around the new financial fair play rules which are set to come in in the next few of years. Newcastle’s is a completely different situation. Those stadiums had little to no history. St James Park has and that’s why there is such an uproar.

Soul

Some fans are suggesting that the soul of the club will be lost with steps like these to gain extra revenue. Like the club are taking something away from them, maybe a bit of the clubs identity by giving corporations the chance to name their stadium. I can see where they are coming from.

Corporate

Unfortunately football is changing and as much as I hate to say this, football is about big business these days. Big corporations will dominate football because they have the money to put in and they know that football means big business to them.

Where is going to stop though? Is every club going to try to bring extra money in by renaming their stadium? Are we going to end up with stadiums all named after big corporations and companies? I really hope not because that would definitely take something away from the experience of football.

Should Newcastle rename St James the Sports Direct Arena?