The stadium will be adjacent to a major roadway, the Dallas North Tollway, but it isn't exactly a prime location. You see, Frisco is on the extreme northern edge of the Dallas Suburbs. In fact, as it stands today, on opening day the tollway will not be extended to Main Street yet(the stadium site). Even when it does, the traffic that will be actually passing the stadium to go further North will be light. Most of the traffic will be entering the tollway at that spot to head South - towards Dallas. There won't be nearly as much drive by traffic as there probably is at HDC. Maybe in 10 years, as the suburbs continue to grow North, this will be a bigger opportunity. Whomever decides to purchase naming rights will be doing so for the exposure to the family/suburban fan the Burn will be courting by then. This works for Lowe's, but I was just kidding around. Companies that are based out of the area include: Frito Lay, JC Penney, EDS, Countrywide Mortgage, Comp USA, 7-11, Blockbuster (my leading candidate), Neiman Marcus (HA!), Mary Kay (that would be hilarious and embarassing), Pizza Hut, and several others. I don't know if any of these "locals" would be interested, but it worked for the minor league park in Frisco. Dr Pepper/7 Up's coporate HQ is about a mile from the ballpark.
Really, the favorite has already been mentioned. Radio Shack just came aboard as a major MLS sponsor and is local so it would be ideal here. MLS can pay back part of the contract by stocking up on coaxial cable and crappy telephones and remote-controlled dune buggies.
The Radio Shack That's inspiring. If it was Mary Kay Field I'm sure they would insist that it was painted pink.
I work for Frito Lay so that would be cool. I suggest the Cheetos Center. This way the Burn's uniforms could change colors to orange and purple like twisted cheetos. They could really bring the whole advertising tie-in together by renaming the team the cheetahs. I am half joking here so don't flame me if you don't like the idea. -Von
I walked into a Radio Shack awhile back to buy a new battery for my cordless phone. I told one of the salesman that I chose them over the competition because they were an MLS sponsor. The salesman gave me this curious look and then walked over to an associate of his and asked him something; both of them walked back toward me and I repeated the above again. The second salesperson said "oh" as if he knew what I was talking about and went to grab a pocket sized schedule and handed it to me. It was a MLB schedule. They were not aware of MLS or the sponsorship deal and assumed when I said "Major League" they thought I was talking about bore-ball.
That happened to me at a Target in Alabama once. I told the manager of the electronics department -- a 17 year-old kid with crossed eyes -- that I was buying a Gameboy game from him because Target sponors the Minnesota Thunder. He responded by drooling. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I'm genuinely curious: do you really expect such employees to know about every corporate sponsorship of their employers?
Well, in my case the two men were probably both in their forties and one of them most likely the owner. Radio Shacks are franchise owned and for the most part are run by the owner himself/herself. To answer your question, I expected nothing from them. I wanted them to know why I was taking my business there, that I why I told them what I did. It is better to speak up about MLS as we both did than to say nothing at all. Maybe now thanks to us they know. BTW not much is expected from people in ALABAMA let alone a 17 year old kid. J/K
I didn't know that. That's probably why customer service seems to vary massively from Radio Shack to Radio Shack. Gotcha.
If you want to let the company know that you bought from them because they sponsor MLS, don't tell the sales clerk; write to the company. And send it snail mail rather than email becuase letters get more notice. Find the name of the CEO and VP of Marketing and send the letter with a copy of the receipt to them. From someone who has worked in corporations for the last 15 years and has been writing letters to them for even longer, letters to CEO's get much more attention than telling a sales clerk about your motivations. Heck, my company has three people dedicated to just reading and responding to our CEO's letters from customers. Murf
Perhaps someone more clever than me should put together a "Soccer Sponsors Directory" for firms that support MLS, the Nats or even those that chipped in with WUSA so that we can be more organized about thanking them when the opportunity comes up.
This is actually quite funny, I was thinking of a similar thing last night on my drive home from work. I was thinking about all the complaining us soccer fans do regarding the lack of coverage. Knowing that it will be a LONG time before soccer is considered a major US sport, what can the average fan do to help the situation. It occured to me that if we as a group went out of our way to support MLS, FSW, USSF sponsors then we could make a slight difference. If we could even make a small dent in sponsors' market shares in MLS towns we could make a big difference. Companies are always looking at ways to improve marketing effectiveness. Major US sport sponsorship (NFL, MLB, NBA) is quite expensive and difficult to measure. I just believe a concerted effort among MLS team supporters "could" work better then bitching at ESPN for not showing CL games or MSL highlights on Sportscenter. Prove to potential/current sponsors that they can be more effective on less $ spent with MLS and you would be surprised by the results.