California city looks to sell naming rights to local buildings

The Riverside City Council hired a consultant to study the idea, along with allowing advertisements on everything from benches to trash cans.

The Inland Empire 66ers play ball at San Manuel Stadium. An indoor arena in Anaheim is named the Honda Center. And Los Angeles’ Staples Center recently became the Crypto.com Arena.

Naming-rights deals allow companies to pay to put their name on a building, event or piece of property.

Now, Riverside is exploring the idea of selling naming and advertising rights to city “assets” to bring in revenue. “Assets” include various kinds of city property, from buildings to benches.

It isn’t clear yet which — if any — buildings could be renamed or where advertising could appear. A preliminary list from 2020 included a number of buildings, including the Riverside Convention Center, the Food Lab, the Fox Performing Arts Center and the downtown Main Library, as well as many smaller assets.

The Riverside City Council voted 6-1 last month to hire a consultant to develop what’s called a Corporate Partnership Program. Councilmember Jim Perry voted no.

The city’s two-year contract with the Superlative Group, a consultant based in Ohio, is for $347,625, and doesn’t include the cost of a 15% commission for sales with which the consultant assists.

“We plan to build off our extensive experience in the Southern California market to deliver partnerships that drive value for the city, the taxpayers of Riverside and its partners,” Myles Gallagher, CEO of the Superlative Group, said in a statement.

Perry said in an interview that, while he doesn’t have a problem with naming-rights deals, the city spends “an awful lot of money on consultants.”

Perry also said he would have preferred hiring a firm that knows the area.

During the March 21 council meeting, Perry asked why the city couldn’t launch the program with its own employees. Jeff McLaughlin, who works in the city manager’s office and gave the report to the council, said the city’s staff concluded that it doesn’t have the needed skills.

Councilmember Ronaldo Fierro, who served as chair of the committee working on the project, sees economic benefits for the city.

“We’ve been talking about this one for a while,” Fierro said at the council meeting, “And like I’ve said many times, it’s pretty difficult to cut your way to prosperity, and the only way to reach a place of improvement for the city of Riverside is to increase revenue.”

Naming rights deals are visible throughout Southern California.

Toyotas are Huntington Beach’s “Official Lifeguard Vehicle” as well as the “Official Vehicle of the San Diego Lifeguards.” The automotive company’s name is also on Ontario’s Toyota Arena. Recently, the Los Angeles Football Club signed a deal with the Bank of Montreal to call its venue BMO Stadium. 

The Superlative Group has previously worked in California, including on a deal for Santa Monica’s bike share system. The agency’s Chief Operating Officer, Kyle Canter, said at Riverside’s council meeting that Santa Monica wanted to keep the name “Breeze Bikes” rather than adopt a corporate moniker. 

“We were tasked with generating revenue without being able to sell the name in that instance,” Canter said.

The consultant ultimately secured a five-year, $3,375,000 deal with Hulu, which put its logo on the lime-green bikes.

The 2020 list of Riverside’s assets, compiled by a group of city employees from various departments, was organized into six categories: buildings/facilities, events/programs, fleet, marketing, objects and places/spaces. It identified over 182,000 items that could “be leveraged for marketing partnerships,” a 2020 memo states. The list included buildings, buses, annual events, trash cans and a range of other items. Ward meeting calendar post cards accounted for 108,000 of the 182,000 items on the list.

If the program moves forward after the Superlative Group concludes its research, it will be some time before any Riverside assets are identified as naming opportunities. The identification of assets may happen late this year or early in 2024, McLaughlin said in an email. Details about what potential revenue might be used for are yet to be determined, McLaughlin said.

Fierro said it’s also too early to have an idea about the amount of revenue that could be raised.

“That’s part of (the consultant’s) scope of work, to give us an idea of what those numbers could look like, and whether or not it’s even worth our time to pursue a naming-rights program,” Fierro said.

Dave Stolte, President of the Old Riverside Foundation, which is “dedicated to the recognition, appreciation, and preservation of the built environment” said that he didn’t think the public would mind naming deals, with the exception of local historic landmarks such as the Fox or the Riverside Municipal Auditorium.

“The name is part of that building’s heritage,” he said.

Fierro said that, while the consultant would probably look “at every possible building,” there would likely be community feedback before a historic property such as the Fox were renamed.

“Would we want to probably preserve that history? Absolutely,” Fierro said. “Whether or not the community would support additional naming on top of that — I think that’s yet to be seen.”