South Dublin County Council is opening a tender process for the naming rights to Tallaght Stadium, the soccer ground and planned future concert venue in which it is investing €11.5 million in an expansion and upgrade programme.
The council is seeking a commercial partner for the home of Shamrock Rovers, the FAI women’s national football team and the men’s under-21 football team in a deal that it hopes will run for a minimum of six years.
“Tallaght” is expected to remain part of the name of the venue, it said.
The move comes amid high broadcast and wider media exposure for the stadium, plus a string of bumper attendances that has seen its visitor numbers for the year to date exceed 100,000. South Dublin County Council, which owns the stadium with Shamrock Rovers as its anchor tenant, has ambitions to increase the annual visitor tally above 500,000.
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Expressions of interest will be sought from Tuesday through a public procurement process being run by the council in conjunction with Core Sponsorship, part of marketing group Core. The closing date for tenders is October 13th.
It coincides with the construction of a north stand, which will take the stadium’s seated capacity above 10,000 from summer 2023, with the council intending to open up the facility to live concerts with a capacity of 20,000 “towards the end of next summer”.
Jason Frehill, director of service for South Dublin County Council economic, enterprise and tourism development, said selling the naming rights would help the council make Tallaght Stadium “an even better experience” for fans, raise the profile of the venue and grow visitor numbers into the area.
Noel Martyn, intelligence director at Core Sponsorship, said the broad spectrum of attendees made this an appealing opportunity for sponsors.
“Shamrock Rovers obviously has been the most successful club at League of Ireland level and they’re going great guns again, including at European level, but the big bonus has been the women’s national team. They’ve brought a really good young fanbase, with lots of children and lots of mums coming into the stadium as well,” Mr Martyn said.
Commercial interest in women’s sport is fast rising, with brands keen to harness some of the “buzz” around the women’s national football side, who won their crucial World Cup qualifier against Finland at the stadium. Later this month, the under-21s men’s team will play Israel in a playoff for next year’s UEFA European U21s Championship.
The planned improvements, which include new VIP areas and communications facilities, will secure its status as a UEFA category four stadium.
The upgrades form part of an €80 million investment in a range of infrastructure projects underway in the area, including the Tallaght Innovation Centre, the Tallaght District Heating Scheme and a public-realm enhancement programme for Tallaght Town Centre.
“That’s all helping to create an environment that is going to support the development of 13,000 new homes and 15,000 jobs,” Mr Frehill said.
He cited community pride in the stadium as the reason why it is “really important for us” that Tallaght is retained in the name. “We want a partner that is fully aware of that and signs up to that as well.”
Mr Frehill said the council had “a relatively open book” on the price the naming rights could fetch. “We effectively want the brands to put the value on it.”
Although it will not be seeking bids from alcohol, tobacco, e-cigarette, gambling or high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) brands, Core expects a “fairly broad base of companies and categories” to be interested.
“Naming rights have traditionally been supported by the financials, utilities and automotives, but now we are seeing technology companies coming in very strongly,” said Mr Martyn, citing FC Barcelona’s home, now known as Spotify Camp Nou, and Amazon’s deal with Seattle’s former KeyArena, which it renamed the Climate Pledge Arena.
The concept of naming rights has been “turning a corner” in the Irish market, he added, with Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds becoming the TUS Gaelic Grounds and Tipperary’s Semple Stadium this year renamed FBD Semple Stadium.
