​Do Football Fans Care What Their Club's Stadium is Called?

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Football is a business and everybody knows it. There was a time when the sport's true nature was hidden from fans, a dirty secret that the parents couldn't bring themselves to tell the kids. But now that it's out in the open they flaunt it, sashaying around in expensive suits with £50 notes stuffed into the pockets. The fans look on, dead eyed, neither accepting nor condemning football's true nature.

Take stadium-naming rights. You might expect this to be a hugely contentious topic. Stadium names are bound up in the history of a club, harking back to when the giants of the past played on torn-up turf for the same wage as a bricklayer. It's where your granddad drank pints for a few shillings and smoked his Pall Malls in the stands. You'd think that having some brash American brand swoop in and re-christen the place would be seen as sacrilegious.

But fans are more pragmatic than that. Few would actively welcome a sponsor's name above their stadium gates, but it seems that most accept it as an important part of modern football.

After all, it's a business.

The sponsor-named stadium phenomenon began to ramp up in Britain during the mid-nineties, when an increasing number of teams abandoned their antiquated Victorian death-traps for plush new all-seater corporate domes. While essential it was also financially crippling, so they sought blue chip companies to help pay for it by flogging the naming rights. And so we got Bolton Wanderers playing at the Reebok, Huddersfield Town's McAlpine, and Stoke at the Britannia. Many more continue to follow.

Re-naming an existing ground was the next step. In 2005 York City sold the naming rights of their home since 1932, Bootham Crescent, to confectionary giants Nestle. The result was the mildly amusing KitKat Crescent.

"I think the dominant feeling among City fans when Bootham Crescent became KitKat Crescent was faint embarrassment," explains Frank Ormston, chairman of York Minstermen, a supporters' fundraising group.

"Most accepted the deal as a painful necessity; the club badly needed the money and it seemed possible that the sponsors might smooth the passage to a new stadium, a hope which ultimately came to nothing.

"With a new stadium at last on the horizon, most City fans realise another naming rights deal is inevitable. As it'll be a shared stadium, the choice of sponsor won't be City's to make, so it's fingers crossed for the least embarrassing option."

As more teams acquire new premises the number of sponsor-named stadia continues to increase. In 2011 Brighton & Hove Albion moved into a 20,000-seater ground (this has since rise to 30,000). Originally known as the Falmer Stadium, a sponsorship deal saw it renamed the American Express Community Stadium, or The Amex for short. Despite some efforts to maintain The Falmer, The Amex has become the standard parlance.

And most Brighton fans don't really care anyway. American Express is the largest private sector employer in Brighton & Hove and there was a long-held view that, when it came to naming the new ground, they would be the ones to do it. And they'd paid for a plush new stadium to replace the school sports fields the club had played at for the previous decade. Why not just get on with it?

There's a similar level of acceptance among fans at bigger clubs. Man City fans were't complaining about calling their home the Ethiad when they won the title, while Arsenal fans don't grumble about going to the Emirates when it means watching Alexis Sanchez play. Of the clubs who remain in ancient stadia, Chelsea are often rumoured to be looking at naming rights deals for Stamford Bridge, the club's home for more than a century.

"We're losing millions a year compared to Arsenal and Man United because of our middling capacity," explains Patrick, a season ticket holder for 30 years. "The problem is the astronomical cost of redevelopment in out built-up location.

"Fans would be outraged if we simply attached a sponsor's name to the ground as it is now. But most accept that if the ground is to be expanded, a 'Qatar Stamford Bridge' may be a sad but necessary means to that end. Most would take the name being amended, and us being able to stay at the Bridge, over relocation to the Sibneft Arena in God-knows-where."

Of course, not everyone's happy. There was outcry when Newcastle United temporarily changed the name of St James' Park in deference to owner Mike Ashley's Sports Direct firm, though in this instance it was a pure moneymaking scheme with no promise of funds going back towards the club. And Newcastle fans hate Ashley. They hate him with a white-hot rage that you can only stand back and admire, so it is difficult to judge their reaction. Would they be quite so angry if Alan Shearer bought the club and renamed their ground The Newcastle Brown Ale Arena?

You get the feeling that most people are happy enough with the arrangement. Sponsors get their name read out on TV by dead-eyed ex-pros, clubs have less debt to worry about, and fans get a fancy new stadium that might lack atmosphere but makes up for it with increased comfort and safety.

But it can't last. Naming rights deals lapse, leading to a ground being re-named again. Leicester City played at Filbert Street for more than a century before moving into a brand new stadium, which would be named after local company Walkers Crisps, in 2002. Initially this was to be known as the Walkers Bowl after the entire branding department collectively forgot that Americanisms are anathema to the bulk of British football fans. It was subsequently christened the Walkers Stadium – naff, but in a British way – before Leicester were relegated from the top flight.

But when they made their Premier League return last season the Walkers Stadium was no more. The club now played at the King Power Stadium. The naming rights had changed hands for the 2011–12 season following the team's sale to the King Power Group.

Again, fans aren't that bothered. Walkers were accepted as they were long-time shirt sponsors and a local company. King Power belongs to club owner Vichai Raksriaksorn, who is a popular figure with Leicester fans. As long-time supporter Richard puts it: "They turned us into an economically sound business, with the team playing an attractive of football in the Premier League. 'The King Power' sounds shit, but I justify it by thinking at least it has some resonance with the club's identity — if only corporate — which is all you can really hope for in stadium names nowadays."

But, resigned and content though fans may be, you can't avoid the fact that the stadium name now means even less than it did before.

Leicester aren't the only example. Bolton's home is now the Macron Stadium, not the Reebok; Huddersfield's McAlpine became the Galpharm and is now the John Smiths Stadium; and Bournemouth's Dean Court, which became the Seward Stadium, is now the Goldsands (which at least offers potential for a Pavement-inspired terrace song).

British football is experiencing the first wave of second-generation stadium names, but in another 15 or 20 years it will have become the norm. Stadiums will be on their third or fourth name and at this stage fans will have little choice but to use an alternative. While Brighton supporters might currently find it simpler to refer to The Amex, there will be problems when it becomes The Gillette Stadium, then The Lucozade Arena. Are they going to continue using a sponsor's name after the money has gone? At this point fans will probably just start calling it 'the ground', because that is something it will always be: rooted to the earth, immovable, and still vaguely holy.

But they'll also do so because they don't care about any of this stuff any more. They have accepted that football is a business. And when you don't care, it's easy to be blasé.

And it is not all bad. As football fans we are willing to tolerate small insults to ensure our clubs still exists 30 years from now, so that our kids can watch the same team, be they Champions League contenders or a local side struggling to avoid insolvency. Yes, we have lost our innocence, but it had to happen eventually. We are consumers, drinking our shitty £6 pint of flat lager on the concourse at half-time without even the energy to complain about it. And as we mope back into the light and see the giant McDonalds logo hung where the century-old clock used to be, we sigh and hope that the next 45 minutes of football will be decent. Because that is all that makes it worthwhile.