Before the Browns could start installing Huntington Bank Field signs at the stadium, the team needed the OK from its landlord: the City of Cleveland.
City Council gave its stamp of approval last week, but with one big question unanswered. How much did Huntington Bank pay for the naming rights?
Ward 16’s Brian Kazy put that question to Browns’ legal counsel Ted Tywang, who sat in the back of council chambers for this week’s special meeting. Tywang said the team won’t divulge the number. They don’t have to.
How much do stadium naming rights go for in the Cleveland market? Here are some ballpark figures (pardon the pun), from around town.
Back in 2008, Progressive Corp. bought naming rights at Jacobs Field for almost $58 million. The publicly traded insurer told investors it was paying $3.6 million for 16 years. (Progressive re-upped on naming rights with the Guardians this year for an undisclosed amount.)
Rocket Mortgage appears to be paying far more for the naming rights at the Cavaliers’ arena.
When Rocket Companies, Inc. went public in 2020, it shared several naming rights numbers with potential investors. The company said it had paid the Cavaliers $8.3 million and $14.1 million in prior years. Future obligations were listed as $8.4 million, $17.3 million, $18 million and $92.2 million.
No need to pull out your calculator. The sum of all those numbers is $158.3 million, or $9.3 million annually over 17 years.
Signal Cleveland asked both Rocket and the Cavs whether that was, in fact, the price of the deal. The NBA team declined to comment. Rocket did not respond. Both the lender and the Cavaliers are Dan Gilbert companies.
City Hall does not stand to gain from the Huntington Bank guessing game. Under Cleveland’s lease with the Browns, the naming rights windfall goes to the team, not the city.
Med Mart no more
Without a funeral, Cuyahoga County has laid the Med Mart to rest. The white, glassy prism of a building on the corner of St. Clair Avenue and Ontario Street was meant to be a showroom for medical technology. The county built it alongside the convention center and hotel with proceeds from a 0.25% increase in the sales tax that commissioners passed in 2007.
The convention center and medical mart complex was developed by Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. The company – once owned by the Kennedy family and now a part of Vornado Realty Trust – controls the Merchandise Mart building in Chicago.
The Med Mart opened in 2013 as the Global Center for Health Innovation. The idea never really took off.
A product of the old three-commissioner county government system, the building has presented a challenge for County Executives Ed FitzGerald, Armond Budish and now Chris Ronayne.
The mart received its last rites this summer, when the county completed an expansion of the main ballroom. With the Global Center name retired, the Med Mart is now officially an annex of the convention center next door.
At last week’s State of the County speech, a sign above the main entrance welcomed visitors not to the Global Center but to the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland. It was a quiet but unmistakable sign of the county turning the page on one of the last chapters of the county commissioner era.
Axios and Cleveland.com have already eulogized the Med Mart, but we felt the troubled brand deserved one more obituary. So farewell, Medical Mart. In lieu of flowers, please consider booking an event at the Huntington Convention Center.
We got politics
Labor Day indeed marked the start of the final stage of the November election cycle, and Signal Cleveland is following closely. We are offering important election information as well as deeper dives on related issues. We just published an in-depth story by Olivera Perkins that details how unions are campaigning for Democrats in a Republican state. She describes how the AFL-CIO is prioritizing support for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Issue 1 more than for presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.
We are also highlighting events in Cleveland and beyond that don’t always get noticed. The Ohio Black Judges Association, for instance, is launching a series of outreach initiatives to Black communities of faith across the state. The first event is Sunday at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church.
“The theme for all of these gatherings is, ‘Justice is on the Ballot,’” OBJA co-chair and Judge Emanuella D. Groves said in a statement. In other words, the organizers said, voting should not be just about the presidential race.