The Mayor of London is under fresh pressure to help secure a naming rights deal for the London Stadium after it emerged that the current sporting tenant’s relegation could cost the taxpayer up to £2.5million every year.
West Ham pay £4.4million a year to rent out the former Olympic Stadium, with the remainder of the running costs provided by City Hall.
Last week it emerged that their rent could halve if they go down to the Championship, meaning the Greater London Authority (GLA) – who now own the stadium – could be forced to pay out even more than the £19.5million budgeted for in 2025-26.
Despite battling for a point on Saturday, the Hammers are 17th in the Premier League and are still one of the favourites to go down.
Neil Garratt, the chair of the London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee, has now called on the mayor to help mitigate this potential loss by securing a naming rights deal first floated in City Hall in 2012.
In a letter to Sir Sadiq Khan, he wrote: “This is clearly not a comfortable position for the GLA to be in.
“Selling naming rights has long been seen as a way to reduce the stadium’s financial burden on the GLA.
“Despite repeated suggestions and negotiations, a deal has yet to be finalised more than a decade after the idea was first floated.
“The Budget and Performance Committee has consistently recommended that the mayor and the LLDC seek to secure a naming rights deal for the London Stadium to reduce financial losses.”
They have asked the mayor to to “explore all aspects of the commercial
potential of the London Stadium to partially offset the costs of running the
London Stadium” and report back to the committee by next autumn.
In their most recent budget submission, the London Legacy Development Corporation, which transferred ownership of the stadium to the GLA in March, said there was a “significant risk” that naming rights would not be secured until at least 2028.
It has previously been estimated that naming rights could secure up to £4million a year.
Last week David Bellamy, the mayor’s Chief of Staff, told the Budget and Performance Committee:
“The naming rights market does remain challenging. We are not the only major stadium in London that hasn’t secured a naming rights partner yet.
“Any deal has to work for the sponsor, the stadium and West Ham. We continue to be open to approaches and pro-actively looking at opportunities.”
Lyn Garner, the former LLDC chief executive, said in 2023 that she was “very confident” that they would agree a deal by the end of that year, but it never materialised.
For any deal to be struck, West Ham must agree to it and the club would split any income worth more than £4million a year with the GLA.
A GLA spokesperson said told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “London Stadium is working on opportunities to secure more sponsorships and commercial partnerships, and the GLA is supporting them in this work.”
A London Stadium spokesman added: “The Stadium has a number of commercial partnerships. However, the naming rights market remains challenging.
“The team continue to work hard on all avenues which support increased commercial income some of which requires the input of the football club.”
