tpstulane wrote:It's worth $60 million to Benson no matter how you want to try to spin it.Green Wave wrote:That is not entirely correct.tpstulane wrote:$400 million in revenue for Mr Benson.... (including $60 mill from Merc Benz)DfromCT wrote:tpstulane wrote:Oh yeah I forgot, Benson gets $60MM from Mercedes Benz for naming rights to.
No F!@K!ng way. The owner of the building, not a tenant, gets money for the naming rights.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexande ... ith-state/In October 2011, Mercedes-Benz signed a 10-year agreement worth $50-$60 million to call the Saints stadium the “Mercedes-Benz Superdome,”. Under the terms of the lease, the Saints get all of the money from the naming-rights deal.
NAMING RIGHTS SOLD TO SUPERDOME
October 6, 2011
Copyright 2011 MediaVentures
New Orleans, La. - The New Orleans Times Picayune said the New Orleans Saints and Mercedes-Benz have reached a 10-year naming rights agreement that will turn the 36-year-old Louisiana Superdome into the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The deal is worth between $50 million and $60 million, according to sources who talked with the newspaper.
The announcement comes slightly more than six years after Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off the stadium as it was being used as a shelter by thousands of New Orleanians. A massive renovation allowed the stadium to reopen for the 2006 NFL season, and the building has been improved every off-season with the final touches of the $336 million project completed in August. According to Saints officials, it's a new stadium that is better than any in the country.
The stadium's profile will be raised as it hosts three national sporting events in the next 16 months: January's BCS championship game, April's men's Final Four and in February 2013, the Super Bowl. Those events and the success and stature of the building's primary tenant - the Saints - helped persuade Mercedes-Benz to sign on, the newspaper said.
As part of the Saints' 15-year lease extension with the state that was signed in 2009, the Saints were allowed to negotiate a naming rights deal on behalf of the state with the proceeds from the sale going toward any subsidies the state would have had to pay the Saints.
According to the current lease agreement, the Saints get the first $1 million of net revenue from the naming rights deal, with a 50-50 split between the team and the state of the remaining revenue, although the state's share is in credits toward the subsidy payments, not cash.
While the state won't actually reap any cash from the sale of the naming rights, the Times Picayune said the new revenue streams from the renovation and naming rights sale reduced the state's financial obligation to the Saints based on a sliding scale.
And because it appears the Saints will reach their goal of at least $12.5 million in new revenue, the state is off the hook, the newspaper said.
I am not spinning anything. Had Benson took the money how you are porting it to be then that money would be increased by 30 million instead of knocking off what was owed to Benson under the lease agreement.