In the run-up to the 2011/12 football season Manchester City have announed the richest stadium naming rights deal in football history after agreeing to rename their ground the Etihad Airways stadium.

Stadiums up and down the country are now adopting the titles of their sponsors.

However it was Scarborough’s McCain stadium that first started the trend in the UK.

In 1988 Scarborough FC sold stadium naming rights to its frozen food sponsors, and the Athletic Ground became the McCain Stadium.

Fans welcomed the move as it marked a huge investment in the club from an international company.

The name stayed with the stadium until the club was dissolved in 2007.

It was the American’s that first came up wtih the idea selling the name of the stadium to raise funds for the club.

Wrigley Field was the first, when baseball’s Chicago Cub’s stadium Cub’s Field was renamed after its owner; the chewing gum industrialist Willam Wrigley Jnr in 1926.

After Scarborough pioneered the trend in the UK, the English football leagues are now home to the Emirates Stadium, King Power Stadium, the Reebok Stadium,.

For a while one of the McCain’s stadium’s neighbouring grounds was Kitkat Crescent, home of York City, however the stadium has now reverted back to its former name Bootham Crescent. The newest addition to the list will be Manchester City’s Etihad Airways stadium following a deal which cost over £10 million a season.

Source: scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/

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