It was being reported yesterday that Queens Park Rangers had decided to forego any potential Stadium sponsorship ahead of the 2018/19 campaign, and would instead ask fans to nominate a worthy charity for significant promotion at Loftus Road.
It will be the first time in our history that we have offered up the ground to be known by a different name and the BBC quoted chief executive Lee Hoos as explaining that it would simply ‘help a charity get exposure they would never normally be able to achieve’.
💙 #QPR are going to gift the naming rights of Loftus Road to a local charity from next season – and are asking fans to choose the charity in question.
▶️ https://t.co/IVFAZGLprf#ChooseLRCharity pic.twitter.com/rg6sZGzrna
— QPR FC (@QPR) April 17, 2019
The final decision on the charity to be adopted in this manner would be down to the fans.
At Premier League level Stadium sponsorship runs into double millions, but League One side Peterborough United, according to the report, recently struck a decade long deal to rename their ground as the Weston Homes Stadium and they negotiated a cool ÂŁ2million, so the financial implications for us would be worthwhile.
It did garner the expected reaction though, some fans thought it was a brilliant gesture, others thought in our financial position it was a ridiculous decision to have taken. There were understandably those who deemed it would only ever be known as Loftus Road amongst the fans, although with respect that misses the media point for the charity. Other felt we should offer up shirt sponsorship with the same outcome, whilst avoiding the need to physically rebrand our home ground.
I’m torn as it will only ever be Loftus Road and if we end up with a new Stadium plenty of fans will simply call that the New Loftus Road before ‘new’ gets lost, but it is a brilliant gesture that shouldn’t tangibly actually change anything.
But football is emotive and some things shouldn’t change, yet others would be happy with a new Stadium name if it directly aided the first team squad – tough one to call.
The mix of reactions can be read by clicking on the above Tweet.
