Hello all, I am a Southampton fan and student at the University of Gloucestershire and for my dissertation I am looking at fans' attitudes of stadium naming rights in the Premier League. I visited St James Park, or the Sports Direct Arena as it now known, on Saturday and was meant to visit Stoke on Sunday, but due to a friend becoming ill this couldn't happen. Now I'm here asking for your assistance, so if any of you would be willing to fill out a quick questionnaire please could you send me a private message with your email address and I will send you a copy over to complete, it will literally only take a couple of minutes! I need responses from any fans who have at least attended a home game and a fan of any team that has a stadium that was corporately named from new in the Prem.. (Arsenal, Bolton, Wigan, Stoke, Swansea). Thanks so much in advance to anyone that helps, you are all lifesavers!
From the general consesus when the naming all happened (fellow Jacks please feel free to disagree)....... Originally our new Stadium was pencilled in as the White Rock which due to local heritage, had most fans happy and was the first choice. However considering the financial situation we were in at the time, beggars cannot be chosers. We were just happy to see our club going onward and upward. However, with such an ambiguous corporate name such as The Liberty Stadium... it sounded great !! Lets be honest, if you were not researching this you probably wouldn't have known it was a corporate name. It has Gravitas! I quote ...... LIBERTY>> 1.freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control. 2.freedom from external or foreign rule; independence. 3.freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice. 4.freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty. 5.permission granted to a sailor, especially in the navy, to go ashore. In the long run, it could be argued that we would not be where we are now without the board making such decisions. I don't think I would feel the same if they chose "the Poundland Stadium" though. It's all about branding and the neccessity of the club. The Newcastle situation sickens me as it seems like a pure publicity stunt/advert. If the old established Vetch Field became the "Spud-U-Like" stadium then we would have been effin fuming despite the situation we were in 10 years ago! What price is your soul and heritage. We were lucky in the fact we had a fresh start and a cool stadium name.
if you disagree or agree ... give the poster some feedback. PS I'm jealous about your dissitation topic, beats the effin ones I got on geneticism!
Personally i hate our stadium name , it means nothing to the fans and say's nothing about Swansea and i do understand that these days it goes beyond football but if the suits had any sense you'd think they would try and keep some sort of heritage within the name but as it is in the wide world of commerce money talks and we dont matter
A dissertation on Stadium names? Good grief. Stadiums are named after who ever pays the most for having the stadium named after them or their corporation. As a Swans fan, if you want to chip in 20 Million I would be quite happy for the Liberty to be called Biscuit90 Stadium.. I am more worried that this no brainer (no offense meant and more worried about the state of Education) is your University dissertation.
A compromise for me would have been to name the stadium, Liberty White Rock. A bit of a mouthful but I would like to have retained "White Rock" in there.
I like "The Liberty Stadium",and hope it doesn't become "Tesco's","Sainsbury's",or any other corporate name. " The Liberty" is now well known,and I get a real lift when the announcer says,"and now we are off to The Liberty",(hopefully to hear news of yet another goal for The Swans')
I agree about the Tesco thing but i cant get to like the Liberty just a personal thing,could be worse though it might have been Tha Anne Summers stadium.DO NOT TRY TO IMAGINE WHAT THE KIT WOULD LOOK LIKE
Liberty is fine by me. although as near to the stadium is to Bonymaen ,White Rock certainly would have brought a connection to the local community
I think you would be surprised by the feedback. The majority of Newcastle fans are livid about the change to 'Sports Direct Arena' and i think you will find that a lot of fans do not share your opinion about a stadium being being named anything so long as you put in money. But as there is varied opinion and no research has been done in the field other than stating 'new stadiums are easier to rename' thats the reason for my dissertation! Thanks one and all for your feedback and special thanks to the Swans that have asked to fill out a questionnaire!
....bollox i managed not to think of it till now ...OPEN CROTCH PVC i'm not keeping that in my head on my own
We're about to be sponsored by Duplo. Some people think it's the Lego stadium, but they know nuffink! The bricks are far too big to be Lego. Biscuit. Which campus are you at? Oxtalls or Francis Hall in Cheltenham?
I think the big thing with the Liberty is that "Liberty" is a cool word. It all kinda happened seemlessly and seeing as there wasn't a "concrete" name to start out with, it didn't seem to offend anyone? If it was "The Texaco Stadium" or something people would have probably kicked off, but I bet there's thousands of new season ticket holders who don't even know it's called Liberty because of sponsorship!
