When people think of naming rights in sports, they picture massive stadiums with corporate names blazing across the skyline. But there’s a quieter, arguably smarter category of naming rights that rarely makes headlines: practice facilities. These training complexes — where teams spend the vast majority of their time — are commanding deals in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the brands securing them may be getting the best value in all of sports sponsorship.
What Are Practice Facility Naming Rights?
Nearly every professional sports team maintains a dedicated training facility separate from their game-day venue. These complexes house practice courts or fields, weight rooms, medical facilities, film rooms, front offices, and increasingly, public-facing elements like team stores and community spaces.
Naming rights for these facilities work similarly to stadium deals — a corporate partner pays for the right to have their name on the building, on signage, in media references, and across team communications. But the dynamics are fundamentally different from stadium deals in ways that often favor the sponsor.
Why Practice Facilities Offer Unique Value
Consider what a practice facility provides that a stadium doesn’t:
- Year-round exposure: Stadiums host roughly 40–80 games per year depending on the sport. Practice facilities are in use nearly every day of the year.
- Player association: Every media availability, every behind-the-scenes video, every social media post from inside the facility features the sponsor’s name. Athletes become passive brand ambassadors simply by going to work.
- Community integration: Many modern practice facilities include public amenities — restaurants, retail, healthcare facilities. The naming rights partner becomes embedded in the local community.
- Media mentions: Every time a reporter files a story from the facility, the brand name appears. Injury reports, trade announcements, draft coverage — all reference the facility by name.
Real-World Examples
Several recent practice facility deals illustrate the category’s value:
Intermountain Healthcare secured naming rights to the Utah Jazz’s practice facility, aligning a regional health system with one of the NBA’s most community-focused franchises. The deal put Intermountain’s name in front of local audiences daily and reinforced the brand’s connection to health and athletic performance.
The Milwaukee Bucks’ practice facility carries the Northwestern Mutual name, giving the financial services company a permanent presence in the team’s daily operations. The facility sits adjacent to Fiserv Forum, creating a campus effect where the brand is omnipresent.
Across the NFL and NBA, practice facility naming rights deals are proliferating as teams invest in state-of-the-art training complexes that serve as both competitive advantages and revenue generators.
The Economics
Practice facility naming rights typically cost a fraction of stadium naming rights — often roughly ten to twenty percent of what a comparable stadium deal would command. Yet the exposure metrics can be surprisingly competitive, particularly in the digital and social media era where behind-the-scenes content from training facilities generates enormous engagement.
For regional brands that can’t justify the investment required for a stadium naming rights deal, practice facilities offer a path to deep team association at a more accessible price point. The deals typically run for ten to twenty years, providing long-term brand building that compounds over time.
Why They’re the Smartest Buy in Sponsorship
The case for practice facility naming rights comes down to efficiency. You’re paying less for a different kind of exposure — one that’s more intimate, more consistent, and increasingly more visible as teams invest in content creation from their training facilities.
In an era where authenticity matters more than logo placement, having your brand name associated with where athletes actually train and prepare — rather than just where they perform on game day — carries unique credibility. Platforms like SponsorFlo.ai can help brands evaluate practice facility opportunities alongside traditional stadium deals to find the right fit.
The next time you see a press conference backdrop, an injury report dateline, or a behind-the-scenes player vlog, pay attention to the facility name in the background. That’s a brand getting daily, authentic exposure for a fraction of stadium pricing — and that’s why practice facility naming rights might be the smartest buy in sports sponsorship that nobody’s talking about.
