The investment was significant, but it is constantly bearing fruit. Everton’s new stadium, in fact, has already become a gold mine for the blue club of Liverpool. Leaving Goodison Park, the club’s home for 133 years, was a hard blow for the more emotional fans, but everyone knew that the move to the new 920-million-euro facility on the Liverpool waterfront, named the Hill Dickinson Stadium for naming rights reasons, represented the opportunity to make a true leap in quality, for the Toffees. Who, ahead of the first season in their new home, devised a simple but ambitious strategy: to let most of the commercial deals expire during the summer, precisely in conjunction with the move, so as to negotiate new ones. And with a new stadium to use as a lever at the negotiating table. «We had multi-year contracts with the partners and we structured them so that almost all of them, except some of the most important ones, expired with the entry into the new stadium», explained to The Athletic Mark Rollings, Everton’s chief partnerships. «At a certain point it was frightening, we were at zero with the virtual revenue. But there had to be a change of pace. We said to the historic partners: “I know that we have worked together for a long time, but now this is the value”. With the new stadium the prices went up and, in effect, we did not lose anyone».
Everton has expanded the existing deals with the technical supplier Castore and with the watch brand Christopher Ward, both having become founding partners of the new facility – a category that guarantees greater visibility on matchday on the boards. New high-profile deals have also been signed with Pepsi and Budweiser: Pepsi has become the Toffees’ partner for soft drinks, while Budweiser is the new official beer for the club. Both brands, moreover, have decided to as well as sponsoring the fan plaza in front of the East Stand. «With Budweiser we had been talking for about 18 months before closing the deal, and a similar timing applies to Pepsi», recounted Rollings. «We are the only Premier League club to have deals with both Budweiser and Pepsi. These operations take time. Many think that it is just a question of transactions, but today it no longer works like this: you have to sell a marketing solution, you have to tell a story».
Everton plans to host concerts in the fan plaza (which can hold 17 thousand people) as well as inside the stadium, which has a capacity of almost 53 thousand seats. The contacts with possible artists are already at an advanced stage. Meanwhile there is already the certainty that the Hill Dickinson Stadium will host matches of Euro 2028, which will be held in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and it is among the venues proposed for the British bid for the 2035 Women’s World Cup. «Music and the other events were a key factor for Budweiser», underlined Rollings. «We prepared commercial materials without even mentioning Everton: they talked only about music, about events, about what the stadium will bring to the city and about the bond with the local communities. This was the story they wanted to tell. The message to the market is clear: “If the biggest beer producer in the world is willing to invest so much and to believe in it, then you should do it too”. It is a very strong signal of confidence, but without the new stadium all of this would not have been possible. It was the decisive piece».
Rollings revealed that Everton «spoke, or tried to speak, with over 3 thousand brands» in the search for a naming rights partner, before arriving at the global law firm Hill Dickinson. After having travelled all over the world in search of potential partners, the deal was closed in an office in Liverpool’s business district, with a company born precisely in the city. A choice that, Rollings admits, «was probably not in anyone’s mind». The figures were not made public, but the club has defined the agreement «one of the biggest naming rights deals for a football stadium in Europe».