St. Cloud Looking To Sell Naming Rights for the MAC

(KNSI) – St. Cloud is looking to hire a consultant firm to help them make money on the naming rights and sponsorship of the Municipal Athletic Complex to help pay for an expansion project. The one-year contract will be in front of the city council for approval on Monday.

St. Cloud Community Services and Facilities Director Scott Zlotnik says Front Burner Sports and Entertainment has a history of getting deals done for facilities.

“They have a significant resume of working in the regional area and garnering opportunities for naming for sponsorships and for donations to sports facilities and youth sports facilities, most notably in Minnesota.”

Zlotnik talked about the income streams the city hopes to get out of the deal.

“We want to work with a consultant to either bring in lump sum opportunities for donations or sustainable annual gifts. So maybe it’s naming the overall Sports Complex, sort of vetting out what’s available for sponsorships, and then opening that public process up to potential businesses.”

The deal would pay Front Burner Sports a $3,000 base salary for twelve months. ($36,000) The consultants would also get a 10% commission on the lifetime value of sold sponsorships. The company would be required to get a minimum of $250,000 in sponsorships, donations, and naming opportunities. Front Burner Sports’ total compensation would be capped at $175,000. The city says the naming and sponsorship rights could generate around $1.5 to $2 million to put towards the proposed MAC expansion.

St. Cloud has proposed a $31.1 million expansion project for MAC. The project would include 30,000 to 40,000 square foot addition, including locker rooms, training areas, pregame areas, storage, adding artificial turf to Dick Putz and Joe Faber field, maintenance upgrades, and additional paved parking.

The city received $10 million from the 2020 Minnesota bonding bill and was given authority to go to the voters in November to ask for a .5% sales tax to raise over $21.1 million.

St. Cloud hasn’t finalized a November ballot question and is expected to add more construction projects on this fall’s ballot. Zlotnik says St. Cloud wants to get construction started in 2023.

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