Sports Direct Arena is reborn

Taken from Skysports

Rangers have agreed a deal to sell the naming rights of the club's iconic Ibrox stadium with the UK's biggest sports retailing group Sports Direct.
The club's chief executive Charles Green expects the deal to be finalised in the coming weeks and to be in place for next season.
Sports Direct were recently named Rangers official merchandising supplier while the company's owner, Mike Ashley, is also one of the largest shareholders in the Scottish Third Division club.
"We have now decided that Sports Direct will be the partner," Green said on STV.
"We are now into the stage where we are doing some layouts, some pictorials of how it might look and we'll stick those on the website shortly so the fans can see what's being proposed.
"We have had good engagement from the fans on this. I think it was always an issue for fans but I think the fans accept now that this is something that we have to do."
"Almost all of the big stadia have been named now."
Ashley, who owns Newcastle United, upset his club's fans in 2009 when he temporarily renamed St James' Park as the Sports Direct Arena to "showcase" the sponsorship opportunity
However, the Premier League club reverted back to its original name in October last year after signing a shirt deal with Wonga.


Do you think Mike Ashley growing interest in Rangers will have any effect on Newcastle? Could he look to sell so that he could invest more into Rangers? Or maybe just keep Newcastle on the back burner and not invest so much time and effort on the club?

 

All the time we're a Premier League club we're more financially lucrative than anything in the SPL, so any lack of investment on his part could result in him being out of pocket.

I believe MA saw the opportunity for a huge return on his investment based on the probability of Rangers making it to the SPL.

 

The return on investment will be the sole purpose.

They still have a good fan base around the world. (I'm not one of them)

It would'nt of taken too much money to become one of the largest shareholders.

 

i think he'll build them back to the SPL then sell

once they are in the SPL then there could be a potential conflict of interest and he may well be required to sell one or the other.

an EPL team will always be more valuable than an SPL team

 

Fair play to him for expanding his reach once again

 

Rangers could do with someone like Ashley involved as he'll ensure club is run within it's means and not go crazy with wages etc as in the past.
It will also enable him to sell Ranger kits in his shops and we all know they have a superb following worldwide.
His initial outlay will be low in comparison to the Toon and I've no doubts he'll reap great rewards as they climb back to SPL ( if that is where Rangers want to be )

 

There could be issues if Rangers were to enter the English league though due to conflict of interests.

 

cant see any scottish fan wanting to see rangers playing against man utd instead of celtic, unless celtic are comming to the EPL i doubt rangers or hearts would

 

Money may talk...