The City of Yellowknife hopes selling naming rights to some of its facilities can bring in extra cash that offsets expenses and helps keep taxes down.
Go anywhere down south and you can find dozens of facilities that bear the names of corporate sponsors.
For example, Canada is starting to run out of things to stick Rogers on. There’s a Rogers Place, a Rogers Arena, multiple Rogers Centres and now a Rogers Stadium on the way.
On Monday, Yellowknife city councillors were walked through the draft of a new policy that sets out the rules City Hall would follow when attracting sponsors.
“Sponsorship is not new to City Hall … it is something that municipalities across Canada use on a regular basis to help raise revenue to offset costs and ultimately reduce the tax burden on residents,” city manager Stephen Van Dine said.
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“We believe it would be important for council to adopt a sponsorship policy in the near term. Facilities like the aquatic centre do present a tremendous opportunity to try to obtain some kind of offset, to the benefit of Yellowknife ratepayers.”
The city’s new aquatic centre is nearing its opening date. A naming rights deal might help cover a small share of the tens of millions of dollars paid to build it.
“We have not started any kind of exploratory discussions yet with respect to what kind of sponsors might be interested in such a facility. This is an important first step in allowing us to have a foundation in place,” Van Dine said of the draft policy.
The policy lists dozens of “guiding principles” designed to regulate exactly who gets to name what.
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Any sponsor must “be compatible with and complementary to the city’s values and mandate,” the draft rules set out, and a name cannot “endorse a partisan political or ideological position or imply that their products, services, or ideas are sanctioned or endorsed by the city.” (Goodbye, “Axe The Tax Public Library.”)
Some facilities, like City Hall and the dump, are not available for naming.
“I don’t personally want to see a City Hall brought to you by Shoppers Drug Mart but outside of that, pretty open,” said deputy mayor Garett Cochrane during Monday’s dicussion.
“That one’s not allowed,” confirmed Mayor Rebecca Alty.
“That and the solid waste facility, although I could think of a few people who would love to have their name on that.”
For all the jokes about Rogers – which has effectively no presence in the NWT – it’s more likely that northern-based firms such as diamond mines, northern airlines and so on will be interested in Yellowknife’s naming rights.
No deals are confirmed to be in development yet.
The policy still has some areas that might need ironing out, too.
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One guideline notes that it’s possible for a facility to carry a commemorative name – like the Shorty Brown Arena or Ruth Inch Memorial Pool, to name two that currently recognize Yellowknifers of note – alongside a sponsored name.
Alty asked what the process is if a sponsor wants to buy naming rights to a facility that already has a commemorative name, giving the example of an imaginary Rio Tinto Shorty Brown Arena.
She asked if relatives of the person being remembered in the existing name should have a “veto” over a sponsor coming in, “or do we say, ‘We’re removing your name if you don’t want to be associated with that.’ Because it is tricky with these commemorative names, particularly when they’ve been on for so long.”
Van Dine said the city would be taking a “case by case approach” once the policy is introduced.
A revised copy of the policy, incorporating feedback from council, is likely to return for councillors’ consideration in the near future.
What would you choose?
Use your imagination. What’s your dream combination of sponsor (it could be any company at all) and city facility, and why?
We’ll post a selection of submissions below.
Suggestions from readers so far include:
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Northwestel Multiplex and Starlink Fieldhouse, submitted by different readers, one in support of recognition for Northwestel’s longtime service and one who said they’d enjoy the irony of playing on the Northwestel field at Starlink Fieldhouse.
The Swiss Chalet Ski Chalet, submitted because it “sounds funny,” or the PlayStation Metal Gear Solid Waste Facility. (“Snake will take care of that,” a resident suggested.)
The @YellowknifeMemes Public Library, to “entice the younger crowd.” Also, the Arctic Farmer Fieldhouse on the grounds that “they’ve planted most of the fields in Yellowknife, let’s make it a full set.”
And the Ismailov I K Limited Liability Company Wildcat Café, which someone put a lot of work into researching. That’s the name of a Kazakhstan-based fish processing company, and is almost certainly suggested as a reference to a classic 2016 CBC report that the Wildcat’s then-operator was selling fish from Kazakhstan marketed as being from Great Slave Lake. (The Wildcat has since changed operator multiple times.)
