LSU Lady Tigers play in South Carolina GameCocks during the SEC basketball tournament in Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, SC, in March 2024 Bon Secours Mercy Health paid over $ 4 million in 2023 to renew the rights of names in the arena. (Photo Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
Non -profit hospital systems throughout the country spend millions on a slice of their names at sports stadiums and arenas, even as federal medicaid cuts and economic uncertainty Make their financial contracts.
Healthcare and hospital groups have bought the rights of names in Ballparks and Arenas in states such as CaliforniaIN FloridaIN GeorgiaIN IndianaIN New YorkIN North KarolinaIN Pensilings AND Tennessee.
The interest of the healthcare sector in information contracts with sports teams has only grown in recent years, said Angeline Close Scheinbaum, a sports marketing professor at the University of Clemson.
Scheinbaum and a colleague, professor of marketing of the University of Xavier Russell Lacey, study sponsorship investments at stadiums.
“One of the most important topics we have seen in our research is creeping in the healthcare space,” said Scheinbaum.
However, the rights to name with the participation of non -profit hospitals in particular aroused eyebrows among local officials and society.
In contrast to their counterparts focused on profit, non-profit hospital systems I don’t have to pay most taxes. In return, they are obliged to give the community, offering free care or discount and focusing their resources in underestimated areas. They usually assign less dollars for advertising and marketing.
Some local officials in the United States, such as Tennessee and California, criticized the sponsorship of non -system stadiums as penniless operate of funds, arguing that money is better to spend an improvement or extension of access to care. Hospitals counteract that they must remain competitive on the market, and sponsorship helps them integrate deeper with their communities.
But some officials remain unconvinced.
“Clean emotions” often conducts debates on the offers of the sports stadium
In May announced He entered a contract with Chattanooga Lookout, a tiny baseball team to mention their recent Erlanger Park stadium. The view is a double partner of Cincinnati Reds.
This movement was frustrated by Weston Wamp, the Republican Mayor of Hamilton, where Chattanooga is the seat of the unit.
“When the county supported Erlanger’s transition to the Non -profit hospital, we could not imagine many millions of dollars to naming the stadium,” the Wamp said in the May statement. Stateline refused to comment further and quoted his previous statement.
“I very much support Erlanger Hospital and his current leadership, but in times of serious nursing shortages and the quality of fear of care, this decision is difficult to clarify,” he said.
While Erlanger and Lookout did not disclose the amount of sponsorship, the vamp said that the security hospital would “apply for an annual lease payment of $ 1 million.”
The president and general director of Erlanger, Jim Coleman, said Stateline in a statement that the hospital does not experience nursing shortages.
“We are proud of our decision to become a partner of naming the amazing new Lookouts stadium, because this allows our system an unparalleled opportunity to reach our community in a new and exciting way to a competitive market,” he said.
“This partnership makes sense and we are waiting to welcome our entire region to enjoy Erlanger Park next year.”
Scheinbaum said that the marking of the stadium or arena could improve the recognition of the hospital system name and signal its commitment to the city. She compared this with the office of a local sponsoring doctor of the Small League team.
“This is an economical signal of strength, but it is also a way to fix the roots in the local community,” said Stateline. “It becomes a permanent element in these cities and part of the local jargon. In this sense it can be very powerful.”
But as in the case of Erlanger, not all local officials are elated to see that their net security hospitals spend millions on this type of sponsorship, especially when hospitals largely rely on state or local financing and ask for public donations.
It is an economical signal of strength, but it is also a way to fix the roots in the local community.
– Angeline Close Scheinbaum, Professor of Sport Marketing at Clemson University
After non-profit Valley Children’s Health Care in California Social media reaction. Some residents said that the hospital was wasting funds, especially after organizing public fundraisers to obtain donations.
Hospital leaders defended This move, saying that the money comes from the marketing budget, which is financed from the revenues from the hospital, not donations. The hospital said that the name of the rights of naming can improve its recognition and the ability to recruit employees.
“Relations for children from Fresno Stan Valley is a partnership, not a name of name rights,” said Stateline Zara Arboleda, a spokeswoman for healthcare for children in Valley Children in a statement.
“Although this partnership covers our right to mention the stadium, it focuses primarily on improving healthcare for children, creating educational opportunities for children’s staff in Valley and State Statura Statura Fresno, as well as building training and vocational education – including paid internships – for students.”
But the partnership also contributed to the benefits for the general director and hospital officials, including the Skybox Apartment with catering to $ 1,500 for each home game, a flight in a round lane for four in the charter plane of the team for road games and hundreds of tickets for home matches, according to media reports.
Fed with the members of the Fresno City Council to ask the Prosecutor General Democratic California Rob Bont examine Using the hospital by state financing.
You enable our work.
In 2023, the non-profit care system based in Ohio, Bon Secours Mercy Health, paid over $ 4 million renew Naming rights in the sports arena in Greenville, South Carolina. But the system has Approach under congress control AND She gained the attention of the media For downloading immense phrases from a federal program, which is to support subsidize care for penniless patients. Critics sent a system of money spent on naming rights and executive wages.
In Indiana non -Profit ParkView Health paid for the rights to name at the local minor league baseball stadium over the yearsbut also has attracted the attention of the media Because his hospitals are one of the most exorbitant in the country. His rights to naming She was collecting criticism With Leaders of the state. The stadium is home for Fort Wayne Tincaps, a subordinate subject of San Diego Padres.
And in the Louisian of the Mother of God of the Lake Regional Medical Center, he talks about paying $ 50 million in a decade for the rights of names to the proposed recent arena at Louisiana State University. Non -Profit Catholic Hospital, one of the largest healthcare systems in the region, has not yet finalized the details of the contract with the Flagship State University.
Scheinbaum said that the rights to naming the stadium can be a good operate of the marketing budget of the healthcare system.
“Sponsorship is more than just hitting something,” said Scheinbaum. “This should be part of a holistic package in which you give the community.”
For example, it can allow hospital suppliers to offer more educational events on site during games. In recent months, Erlanger has visited events During Lookuts, the games focused on women’s health and preventing strokes.
And sports sponsorship is not a recent phenomenon in healthcare. Hospitals and medical groups have long been cooperating with sports teams at all levels as “official” service providers for team athletes.
“There is a natural organic fit between health and sport,” she said. “People love sport. This is a cultural point of conversation.”
Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be achieved at avollers@stateline.org.
