Stadium adds Gregg to sponsorship roster

While the Indianapolis Colts steamroll their way toward the playoffs, the team’s sales staff is racking up its own successes.

Today, Colts officials announced another multi-year, multi-million-dollar sponsorship deal for Lucas Oil Stadium, which is set to open next fall.

Officials for locally based HHGregg Inc. announced at a press conference at the team’s 56th Street training complex that they have signed on to sponsor Lucas Oil Stadium’s south gate.

This is no ordinary sponsorship deal, Gregg officials said. They promised to make the venue an interactive electronic playground for Colts fans.

Though exact terms of the deal were not revealed, Colts officials told IBJ in September 2006 the asking price for such a gate sponsorship was $1.4 million annually.

The gate sponsorships are part of a plan to raise about $10 million annually by allowing companies to sponsor and theme 12 distinct parts of the $675 million stadium. The Colts are among the first teams to allow sponsors to help decorate a stadium as it is being constructed.

“When fans come through the gate they aren’t going to believe their eyes,” said Gregg President Dennis May. “One way to describe it is taking the coolest HHGregg showroom you’ve ever seen, multiplying it by 10, throwing out all the conventional thinking with retail design and then dropping it in the NFL’s newest showplace stadium.”

The deal is the latest in a string of recent sponsorship signings.

Team officials said Oct. 23 that the law firm of Baker & Daniels LLP has signed a six-year deal to be a founding partner at the new stadium. The agreement will include naming rights for the upper and lower east club levels, as well as media advertising. The deal is valued by sports business experts at up to $1.5 million annually.

On Oct. 2, Colts officials signed a six-year deal with Indianapolis-based Advantage Health Solutions Inc. that includes naming rights to the area for club ticket holders on the west side of Lucas Oil Stadium.

On Sept. 23, the Colts announced that Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bank signed a multi-year deal to sponsor the west gate of the new stadium.