Sports Illustrated will rename Red Bull Arena under a 13-year agreement with the New York Red Bulls, marking the first time the soccer venue in Harrison, New Jersey, will carry a brand other than its founding corporate parent since opening in 2010.
The deal ends Red Bull's 15-year run as stadium nameplate holder. The Austrian energy drink company still owns the club outright—purchased in 2006 as the MetroStars and rebranded—but is ceding the venue signage to a media property now controlled by Authentic Brands Group and Minute Media. Financial terms were not disclosed. Comparable MLS naming-rights agreements in secondary markets have ranged from $1.5 million to $3 million annually; a 13-year term at the low end implies roughly $20 million in total value.
The move is unusual in two directions. Red Bull rarely yields branding real estate it controls—its Formula 1 teams, soccer clubs in Salzburg and Leipzig, and content studios all carry the can—and Sports Illustrated has no consumer product to move off shelves inside the 25,000-seat stadium. What SI does have is distribution deals with FanDuel, a new sports betting vertical, and a licensing portfolio that now includes hospitality, apparel, and experiential events. The Harrison venue becomes a physical anchor for a brand rebuilding itself as a platform, not a magazine.
For the Red Bulls, the deal offers a rare liquidity event on an asset class—naming rights—that MLS teams outside the top three markets struggle to monetize. The club has never won MLS Cup despite reaching three finals. Attendance in 2024 averaged 18,342, sixth in the Eastern Conference. Red Bull's calculus appears to be that the energy drink's brand equity flows through ownership itself, not signage, and that $20 million over 13 years beats the marginal value of seeing its own name on a building it already controls. The league office will be watching whether other mid-market clubs with corporate owners follow: Orlando City is owned by the family that runs Flavio's restaurant group; Real Salt Lake by a tech investor with no CPG play.
Sports Illustrated's bet is riskier. The brand has cycled through ownership turmoil—bankruptcy in 2019, acquisition by Authentic Brands, operational handoff to Minute Media—and laid off most of its editorial staff in 2024. Naming a stadium extends the IP into live sports infrastructure, but the payoff depends on whether SI can convert foot traffic and local media mentions into downstream revenue: FanDuel lounge conversions, licensed merchandise sales, event bookings. If it works, the model is exportable to other venues. If it doesn't, the brand is paying for exposure on a team that draws 18,000 fans per match in a market where it competes with the Yankees, Mets, and both New York football clubs.
Watch whether Sports Illustrated announces co-branded activations inside the stadium before the 2025 MLS season opens in late February. The company will need to show whether the naming rights are a branding play or a distribution wedge. Also worth noting: Red Bull's silence on whether the company retains any in-venue presence—board seats, hospitality suites, or pouring rights would signal whether this is a full exit or a revenue split with optionality.
The deal takes effect immediately. First match under the new name is scheduled for mid-February.
The takeaway
Sports Illustrated pays for 13 years of MLS signage as Red Bull monetizes its own venue, testing whether a media brand can extract value from live sports real estate.
naming rightsmlsnew york red bullssports illustratedstadium dealsred bull
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