Elgin considers selling naming rights for facilities

Elgin might look at selling naming rights for some of its parks and recreation facilities, similar to what Rockford, Chicago and other cities have done.

In March, the city issued a request for proposals from consultants with a minimum 10 years of experience, and the only response came from The Superlative Group Inc., based in Cleveland, with a $30,000 bid.

The proposal will be presented to the city council in the near future, Parks and Recreation Director Randy Reopelle said.

"I was looking for different ways to generate revenues for the budget," he said, "and they (the facilities) are just sitting there. It's just what we call 'untapped revenues.'"

Candidates might be the Centre of Elgin, the Sports Complex, the Eastside Recreation Center, the city's golf courses, swimming pools and larger parks, Reopelle said. The consultant would evaluate which is most palatable for naming rights, and at what value, and help broker any deals, he said.

"We don't have the staff knowledge, skill or time to know how to package those things, how to evaluate them and go to market," he said.

Cities, counties, park districts, and even state and federal agencies, increasingly are looking at corporate partnerships to boost revenues, Superlative COO Kyle Canter said.

Superlative helped broker 10-year deals in 2015 in Rockford, including the $1.9 million renaming of a park as UW Health Sports Factory, and the $2 million renaming of two sports complexes into MercyRockford Sportscore 1 and MercyRockford Sportscore 2.

Superlative, whose clients include Chicago, Cook County and the Fox Valley Park Districts, gets 15 percent of revenues over the life of the agreements, Canter said.

The Rockford partnerships were based on the shared missions of the health care entities and public parks as places that encourage people to be healthy, he said. "There's an immediate reaction (in people's minds) that they are going to sell the naming right to city hall to Coca-Cola, but it's just not accurate," he said.

Mayor David Kaptain said he would want to proceed with caution and ask lots of questions. While the prospect of additional revenues is attractive, there are other considerations, he said.

"What are the criteria to put this together? What if you were approached by somebody that's a bad company? How do you reject somebody based on their moral fiber?" he said. "Those are questions that I'd have to ask."

Naming rights agreements would have clauses allowing the city to end the deals based on "moral turpitude," Cantor said.

Over the years, Elgin has secured sponsorships for locations such as field houses and individual rooms at the Centre, which were temporarily renamed after benefactors, but the trend has shifted toward larger packages, Reopelle said.

"Even those little ones take a lot of effort," he said, "so you might well go bigger and see if you can sell naming rights."