Second Ave. Sagas

Tag: Naming Rights

  • From Boston, a ‘Hail Mary’ on naming rights

    Every few months, another transit agency comes out with a proposal to generate revenue through naming rights, and every few months, I sit back and shake my head. The money and the interest just hasn’t materialized yet, and while its time might one day arrive, selling naming rights is much more of an idea in theory rather than practice. This time around, Boston is going to learn this lesson.

    Up in Beantown, the MBTA has some ambitious expansion plans on the table. Using DMUs, the transit agency hopes to drastically expand its reach over the next ten years and will of course need money to do it. One way to generate funds could be through naming rights, and although the MBTA has been talking about naming rights for nearly a year, the agency seems ready to try to draw in advertisers.

    Boston Magazine has the story:

    For the low, low price of $1 million, corporations and businesses can slap their name on select MBTA stops or stations, or even name an entire rapid transit line after their brand. [A few weeks ago,] the MBTA put out Requests for Proposals for the naming rights on nine stations along the system, which includes Back Bay, Downtown Crossing, Park Street, North Station, State Street, Boylston, South Station, and Yawkey Way.

    The asking price to add a moniker to each station starts at $1 million per year, except for Yawkey Way, which starts at $500,000. The contracts would last five years. The call for interested companies to shell out cash to rename stops and stations also includes an opportunity to have their name on some rapid transit lines—specifically the Red, Blue, and Green Lines. According to documents, prices vary for each line, but the most expensive starting bid is on the Green Line for $2 million per year.

    If a company opts to purchase transit line naming rights, they would have their brand printed on station maps, and on system signage. The chance to take over the naming rights of certain MBTA properties, under the “Corporate Sponsorship Program,” was a directive of the state legislature as part of an extensive transportation bill passed over the summer.

    That last line — that’s the crazy part. In the same bill that will allow the MBTA to run T service later than it currently does, the Massachusetts legislature required the agency to issue RFPs for station naming rights. Agency officials still believe naming rights could generate upwards of $18 million for transit, but so far, the grand total has been a whopping $0 in revenue after two years of searching.

    According to the MBTA’s RFP, advertisers could host promotional events in their stations, have their brand broadcast via the subway’s PA system and have their logos appear on the T subway map. Rightly so, though, station names would retain their geographic identifier while adding the advertiser much as the MTA has done with Atlantic Ave./Barclays Center.

    On the one hand, it’s admirable for the MBTA to try, and maybe they can be the ones to succeed. On the other hand, it seems like these efforts have been a waste of time and money. SEPTA in Philadelphia has managed to sell one subway station, and even the MTA hasn’t been successful here in New York. Furthermore, the MBTA is asking for an annual fee that’s five times what the MTA received from Barclays for stations that have, at most, two-thirds the ridership of Atlantic Ave. Many have much less than that.

    Overall, the idea of corporate naming rights as a revenue generator seems to have peaked. The Nationals’ baseball stadium in DC, for instance, has gone without a corporate sponsor for nearly a decade, and Met Life paid only around $1 million per year to name the new Meadowlands stadium. As skeptical as I am, though, if the MBTA’s legally-required due diligence leads anywhere, it will have been worth it.

  • From Resorts World NY, an approach to transit naming rights

    During Thursday night’s Public Advocate debate, three of the five candidates expressed their support for subway naming rights deals. I don’t know why the other two were so hesitant, but Tish James, Daniel Squadron and Sidique Wai all said they would support such deals. This is hardly a controversial position to take, but it’s one that requires a partner. New Yorkers can support naming rights until the cows come home, but if no one is buying them, what’s the point?

    Over the past few years, I’ve detailed repeated attempts by, well, every transit agency around to sell station naming rights, and successes have been few and far between. At some point, I’m going to put together a master list of every agency that wants to sell naming rights with a glimpse at those that have been successful. As you can imagine, the former far out-number the latter.

    Naming rights in New York City entered the fray a few weeks ago when the MTA put forward an official policy on assessing these deals. The agency’s annual take from naming rights is $200,000, but now they have a plan should someone come knocking. And lo and behold, someone has sort of come knocking. That someone is the Resorts World New York casino out in Queens.

    The casino, the first of its kind within the boroughs of New York, is located near the Aqueduct Racetrack stop on the A train. For years, that stop has not been a crown jewel of the system. Decrepit and open only in one direction and also only sometimes, the station is a far cry from, well, anywhere. Its neighbor to the south is the Howard Beach station that feeds weary travelers to JFK Airport, and it was purely functional.

    As part of its entry into New York, though, the casino funded a $15 million station renovation. The Resorts World SkyBridge is the centerpiece of this work. It’s a covered passageway that offers, as the casino put it in a press release, “an enclosed, temperature-controlled, direct path between the casino and the station.” Furthermore, the station — on the northbound side — is now a 24/7 stop. Some Ozone Park residents don’t need to take the 1500-foot walk to the next stop, and casino-goers can buy a MetroCard in the Resort World gift shop before boarding the A train.

    Jose Martinez of NY1 was at the opening, and he reported that Resorts World is interested in securing some naming rights to this station. As politicians are hoping that the MTA will consider building a platform on the Rockaway-bound side of this station, casino officials want their name on the renovated stop. “We’ve been asking them for the last several months what we can do to get the station named after us,” Edward Farrell, president of Resorts World Casino New York City, said to New York 1. “We definitely want it done.”

    If this deal is completed, it could set a potential model for future engagements in New York. A private entity right near a subway stop — and, in fact, one of the main reasons for people to use this subway stop — helped fund the renovation and wants naming rights as well. That’s the ideal situation. How many of those opportunities exist throughout the city though? Probably a few, but nearly as many as politicians eager for more revenue would like.