NFL American football team the Denver Broncos is to begin removing the logos of Sports Authority from its home stadium ahead of the venue’s prospective name change.
The stadium is currently known as Sports Authority Field at Mile High but the Broncos are seeking a new sponsor for the venue after Sports Authority, the sporting goods retailer, filed for bankruptcy in 2016.
The Broncos’ president and chief executive, Joe Ellis, said that Sports Authority signage will start to be removed over the next 10 days.
Ellis said, according to the Denver Post newspaper: “I actually spoke with Jay Roberts this morning. He’s our stadium general manager.
“We are in the process of having engineers looking at (our stadium). We are going to take the signs down. All of the exterior signage will come down, starting in about a week or 10 days. The name needs to remain in place for a while because we have some place-holder events both inside the building and then in the bowl itself – some concerts and stuff. There is just some connection to that name whether it’s through ticketing, event management or things like that.”
The Broncos assumed the contract for naming rights to Mile High Stadium in August 2016. The team will hold the rights until July 31, 2021.
The Broncos had been hopeful of securing a new naming-rights sponsor for the stadium ahead of the 2017 season but no deal was forthcoming. No permanent solution appears to have been found yet, with Ellis admitting that a short-term name could be used next season.
“I suspect by the start of the season we’ll either have a placeholder name or a name on the building that involves a corporation supporting that name,” Ellis added. “That is an important part to our capital funding moving forward. I’ve talked … at length about some of the needs there, and they are extensive. We have, I think, 13 seasons left on our lease, and I’d like to wrap up the naming-rights deal and then extend that because the Broncos aren’t going anywhere.”
The stadium was known as Invesco Field at Mile High from 2001 to 2011 as part of a deal with financial services company Invesco.
Image: Thelastcanadian
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