One thing is almost guaranteed to send most football fans into meltdown in the modern game, the idea of selling commercial naming rights to their stadium and losing their historic name.
Arsenal did it with the Emirates as they built a new home, Brighton with the Amex, as did Manchester City with the Etihad deal although that is slightly different, so it’s not an entirely new concept in the game but for many fans they seem to draw the line between ‘renaming’ their existing ground and then naming a new ground.
Tottenham possibly find themselves in the middle on that one. With the proximity of the build to the original White Hart Lane stadium, if you want to hold the opinion it’s a new stadium and fresh building you can, it’s also not totally wrong to say it’s a rebuild extending our footprint on the original site if you wanted to be pedantic.
With the club/Trust meeting minutes being released and confirmation that we are looking at stadium renaming ahead of shirt sleeve sponsorship given the potential greater reward as we maximise commercial revenues given the cost, I suppose my question is, do fans draw a distinction on rebuild or new ground completely, to temper their own thoughts on being associated with an Acme Stadium, home of Spurs future instead of it officially remaining White Hart Lane?
My own outlook is brand it how you want if the price is right – it’ll always be White Hart Lane in my eyes and every other ground around the country will always be the first name I associate with that ground, whether it is the Amex, the Etihad, Villa Park, Old Trafford etc.
Habit sticks.