Derby County Announce £7m Sponsorship Naming Rights Deal

Derby County’s Pride Park stadium will be renamed the iPro Stadium after a ten-year sponsorship deal worth £7m ($11.2m) was agreed.

The Championship football club have claimed that the deal with the sports drink company is the biggest of its kind in Football League history.

Speaking to BBC Radio Derby, ampoule Sam Rush, CEO of the Rams said: “We are all aiming to take this club to the Premier League and to do that we need significant revenue to invest in the club and playing staff.

“When I arrived at Derby in January I made it part of my strategy to identify all lines of revenue and the opportunity to drive revenue through stadium rights is significant, so that is the major driver.

“We are not aware of a bigger deal in the Football League – certainly not with an independent party. There have been some connected transactions with ownership groups and such things, but this an independent transaction.”

Stadium name changes are often a sensitive subject for fans and the ground has been home for Derby since 1997.

However, Rush said that fans had been consulted and added: “Over the last 10 months we have talked about this with supporters extensively.

“We have done a lot of tours and generally people have been supportive.

“People will have their views but I hope fans will be supportive and understand why we have done it.”