NEW ORLEANS – The Mercedes Benz Superdome will have a new name after the sponsorship deal with Mercedes Benz expires in 2021. Multiple reports say Saints and Dome leaders will begin looking for a new branding partner while the German car company will continue its naming-rights relationship with the Atlanta Falcons stadium. The Mercedes Benz deal is estimated to have been worth $50 to $60 million since it began in 2011.
Observers expect a new sponsorship to be an easy sell considering the Saints’ high TV ratings, the number of major events hosted by the Superdome and fans’ affection for the building.
While many cities have built entirely new facilities in recent decades, New Orleans has focused on improving the Superdome instead. As a result, the Dome is the fifth-oldest building to host NFL games behind Soldier Field in Chicago, Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and New Era Field in Buffalo. But it’s definitely No. 1 in the hearts of the region’s diehard football fans and has achieved iconic status worlwide.
The building is in the middle of a $450 million renovation to replace the old ramps with open atriums and improve the concourses for vendors and field-level end zone box seats. The New Orleans Saints, the building’s most important tenant, will pay about $160 million of the cost.
Since it debuted in 1975, the Dome has hosted five Super Bowls, five college football national championship games and many major sports and music events, including the annual Essence Festival, which has become the city’s biggest tourist event of the summer.
“The Superdome is one of the top leading economic engines in our state and region,” said Saints senior VP of communications Greg Bensel in a statement. “As we enter the first phase of this new renovation, the building has proven capable over the last few decades to be able to adapt and easily re-engineer itself to keep up and in most cases lead in the landscape of new, high tech stadiums that have come online. And if you couple that with the NFL-leading television ratings that the Saints deliver, then you can see real tangible and quantifiable return on investment for a potential naming rights partner.”