Electronics giant looks set for OS naming rights

Rumours this morning (Mon) say the Olympic Stadium could be renamed the Samsung Stadium before West Ham move in later this year.

The whisper is that the world’s biggest electronics company has won the naming rights race and will pay the stadium owners, E20 Stadium LLP, £120m over 20 years with West Ham set to receive around £20m in stadium rent rebates as their share of the deal.

The mobile phone and TV giant are based in South Korea, have a global turnover of more than £215 billion and are just the kind of global blue chip brand the owners have been searching for.

Samsung terminated it’s £18m per year football shirt sponsorship with London rivals Chelsea in 2014 so this deal if confirmed it will come cheap at one of third of the price.

The South Korean company have previously sponsored the Diamond League athletics series at £3m per year with some meetings held at the former Olympic Stadium. Samsung are also a major sponsor of the Olympics in a deal that stretches until 2020 including the Summer Olympics in Rio later this year. During the London 2012 Olympics they sponsored the torch relay which finished in the Olympic Stadium.

Samsung also partners with the Rugby Football Union (RFU). In 2014 they signed a three year agreement that saw Samsung become the key technology supplier as the Consumer Electronics & Smartphone Partner and Official Home Technology Partner to the RFU and England Rugby Team.

Stadium mock-up credit: @WestHamSocial

3pm Update: Chairman’s Son Jack Sullivan says 1% chance or less of it being the Samsung Stadium