The owners of West Ham's London Stadium home are stepping up their search for a naming rights partner for the arena for a third time in recent years.
E20 has already spent nearly half a million pounds of taxpayer cash on finding a partner for the former Olympic Stadium twice previously, with telecoms giant Vodafone and Indian company Mahindra both reportedly coming close to striking a deal, only for it to fall by the wayside.
In an attempt to make the London Stadium a more commercially viable entity, E20 are keen to appoint a new naming rights partner for the stadium as part of its long-term vision for the whole Olympic site, not just the stadium.
In fact, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) appointed a new chief commercial officer, Jo Adams, earlier this month to oversee finding a new sponsor for the stadium and also maximising commercial opportunities for the area.
Adams arrived from England Netball at the start of August into the newly created role and comes off the back of stadium operators LS185 being moved in-house by E20 and overseen as a whole by LLDC.
One of Adams' main objective will be to find a naming partner for London Stadium, something E20 have tried to do twice before and failed.
Hammers CEO Karren Brady has previously said the club would be willing to help out in finding a stadium sponsor for the arena that they rent at their home when she spoke to a London Assembly meeting.
"The amount of expertise that we could give to (landlords) E20 to realise the potential in the naming rights, for example, which is a big part of missing revenue for them, has been disregarded," Brady said in October 2018.
"A naming rights sponsor is not interested on the outside of a building, they're interested in the massive global audience the Premier League club generates."
Earlier this year, LLDC chief executive Lyn Garner added that she would be willing to take on Brady and West Ham's help, saying: “ The contracts require us to work hand in hand with the football club, the football club has rights to sign off on those naming rights ultimately.”
The club can reject a certain sponsor if it doesn't fit in with their own commercial interests for current sponsors they club has on its books already.
According to Hammers news website Claret and Hugh, anything up to £4m in terms of a sponsorship deal for the stadium would be given straight to E20 but any money above that would be split 50/50 between the Hammers and E20.
Official minutes from the March 5 board meeting of E20, only just released to the public, confirmed E20 is set to return to the market for a third time though most of the information is hidden from public view due to confidentiality reasons.
Alex Williamson, a consultant employed by E20, is expected to report back in the near future with an update on the search for a new sponsor.
