Featured image credit: NEC Group/Ethan Davis
Utilita Energy has extended its naming-rights sponsorship of Arena Birmingham as part of a new deal with NEC Group that will run until 2030.
The venue will continue to be known as Utilita Arena Birmingham as part of the deal. The energy provider has sponsored the 15,800-capacity arena since 2020.
Financial terms of the new deal were not disclosed but NEC Group confirmed that a “seven-figure” agreement had been signed. NEC Group and Utilita will use the deal to widen the reach of the latter’s High5 energy efficiency campaign.
The deal will also have a heavy focus on charity and sustainability. In what is believed to be a first, the arena has renamed its VIP lounge after the supplier’s partner charity, Utilita Giving, which supports people in food and fuel poverty.
Bill Bullen, chief executive and co-founder of Utilita Energy, said: “This is far more than just a naming-rights deal. We vow to build on the strong foundations we have established in this great city and will continue to educate and inform through our campaigns which have proved crucial to everyday people throughout the cost of living crisis.
“The arena is also a great platform to help Utilita Giving access a wider pool of people who urgently need help out of fuel and food poverty. Our main goal as a business is to help consumers make their energy go further, meaning they spend less on their bills, and this will continue to be at the crux of how we give back to the local community here in Birmingham.”
The arena is less than four miles away from Utilita’s nearest energy hub in Astle Retail Park, West Bromwich. There are also Utilita energy hubs in Derby and Leicester.
The venue was known as Arena Birmingham from 2017 to 2020, after Barclaycard had sponsored the facility between 2014 and 2017. The arena opened as the National Indoor Arena in 1991.
Utilita also sponsors arenas in Newcastle and Sheffield. Earlier this week, ASM Global was appointed to operate Utilita Arena Sheffield.
Last month, Utilita Energy acquired naming rights to the home stadium of Hampshire County Cricket Club, with ambitions to transform the venue into the world’s greenest cricket ground.
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