Bank Benefits From Deflated Dome

Without question, the halls of Sundog are dominated by Vikings fans. (We tolerate the scattered Bears and Cowboys fans. Most days.) 

By any measure, it has been a disastrous season for our continually-cursed Minnesota franchise. We won’t recap every depressing detail here (this isn’t a sports blog, after all), but an unlikely marketing success story emerged from the past couple weeks.

After the antiquated Metrodome deflated like a bad soufflé, the team relocated its final home game to the nearby University of Minnesota campus. The decision was met with new levels of drama and bickering: Players were upset with the field conditions. Ticketholders were angry about the seating arrangements. The university scrambled to clear snow from the stadium and deflect criticism about its ability to host an NFL game.

Through it all, one Minnesota-based organization remained mostly unscathed: TCF Bank. In 2005 the corporation signed a $35 million, 25-year deal to secure naming rights for TCF Bank Stadium. The deflated dome has led to extraordinary brand exposure and publicity for the bank.

Based on a quick Google News search, TCF Bank Stadium was referenced in more than 5,000 news stories. On the morning of the game, a Bloomberg reporter tweeted that the company had already received $7.5 million in free publicity – and that was before the added intrigue of a gameday snowstorm and the miraculous recovery of Brett Favre’s shoulder. And there’s the national exposure from an evening on ESPN.

TheStreet reported that, compared to other naming rights deals, TCF is getting a relative bargain. Xcel Energy, for example, pays $3 million a year to keep its name on the neighboring Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul (according to this master list).

The Vikings, of course, continue to push for a new stadium. If they are finally successful, TCF Bank Stadium may become the team’s temporary home while the new stadium is built. Should that happen, TCF Bank’s naming rights investment will look even better.