Florida Atlantic close to stadium naming rights deal with prison company
According to a report from fauowlaccess.com, Florida Atlantic is close to a deal with the GEO Group to put the company's name on its stadium for $5 million.
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If you don't know what GEO Group specializes in, that might be a good sign. It's the self proclaimed, "world's leading provider of correctional, detention, and community reentry services."
Naming a stadium after a prison company might go down as the strangest stadium naming deal ever, although not the most unfortunate (Enron Field might forever win that award).
In general, a company having its name on a stadium makes sense. The company's name will reach a large audience with the amount of times the stadium is mentioned during broadcasts or media recaps. It's good, albeit expensive, advertising.
But what's the upside for a prison company putting its name on a stadium, at a price the report says is estimated at about $5 million? We doubt FAU fans are going to want to end up in GEO Group prisons as a result of the sponsorship. The fauowlaccess.com story says GEO Group CEO George Zoley, holds two degrees from FAU, which explains it a little.
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We just hope there's not a uniform change for FAU coming as part of the stadium partnership.
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