There's all this talk about letting the club pay for itself, which, in theory, is a great idea. So I thought of one way that, as far as I can tell, isn't being utilized anywhere - having a corporate name for the stadium. In Serie A, it seems most of the stadiums are named after people. In England there's other names like Old Trafford, Wembley, White Hart Lane. Barca and Madrid play in Camp Nou and Bernabeu. Now, unless I'm missing something, none of these names are company names.

In US sports, almost all stadiums have a corporate sponsor, where the company pays huge amounts of money to the team. For example, United Center (United Airlines), Pepsi Center, Miller Park (terrible American beer), Citi Field (LOL), Bank One Ballpark, etc. I don't know how much all of them get, but the Chicago White Sox recently sold their rights to be named U.S. Cellular Field for ~$66 million.

It's strange because apart from MLS, no American teams sell sponsor names on their shirts, but they do the stadium deals, whereas (again, as far as I can tell) football teams sell their shirts, but not the stadium name. Any reason Milan can't do this (of course they'd split the $ with Inter)?

The only thing that stops it for an American team that wants to do it is if the stadium is a historic landmark, like Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox baseball) or Soldier Field (Chicago Bears NFL). Could San Siro be that type of restriction if they were to try?

The big thing that's different about stadiums in Italy and stadiums elsewhere is that they're all owned by the municipality in question -- ie, the city of Milan owns the San Siro, Turin owns the Olimpico di Torino, Florence owns the Artemio Franchi, etc.

That's why the naming thing isn't happening....yet.

The gobbi are building their own stadium, however. I imagine that one may be named something or another when it's done. It'll be the only stadium in the league that's privately owned.

My opinion in stadium rights is summed up in 2 words.

Small time.

Tradition is almost none existant in football. I understand it's a business and as such revolves around money, but it'd be nice if some teams owners would respect the clubs. Maybe having a stand or 2 with naming rights is okay, so long as it's not a well known stand, but a whole stadium? It's a joke.

I agree that traditions should be respected, but the sad reality is that most clubs in Germany are keen on selling the naming rights to some corporation. Can't think of a single Bundesliga-stadium without the name of a sponsor instead of the Olympic stadium in Berlin. The new stadiums are boring anyway. They're all built by the same blokes and all look very much alike.

Kurt and LaPalma both bring up great points that were also been argued in the US when the trend started ~10 years ago, but for the most part money talked and I highly doubt it ever goes back. In Milan's case, since San Siro is owned by the city, I guess it's a moot point.