In January, the Nationals began processes to sell the naming rights to their stadium and find a sponsor for jersey patches, reports Brett Night of Forbes. Chief revenue officer Mike Carney told Night that the team is hopeful to announce those partnerships midseason.
Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post wrote last August about the Nats’ desire to reach those agreements. She noted at the time that the Nationals were the only team that had neither a stadium rights deal nor jersey sponsorships.
The change is only really relevant to fans in the sense that it could impact the team’s spending habits. Forbes estimates that the deals — which will be negotiated separately, likely with different sponsors — could come with upwards of $20MM in additional revenues annually. Carney loosely alluded to that possibly having an effect on payroll. “We want to be that brand that is a consistent winner year in and year out, and this is going to help to do that,” he told Night.
The Nats have never had a ballpark naming rights agreement. The venue has been known as Nationals Park since its opening in 2008. The Nationals are one of eight teams that doesn’t have a corporate sponsor for its stadium. The Dodgers, Angels, Red Sox, Cubs, Yankees, Orioles and Royals are the others. That doesn’t include the A’s (Sutter Health Park) and Rays (George M. Steinbrenner Field), who are in temporary homes for at least the upcoming season.
While the process has been ongoing since January, the Forbes report comes the same day as the Nationals finally settled their longstanding battle with the Orioles over the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. The Washington organization can pursue its own in-market broadcasting opportunities after the 2025 season. That should position them to lock in a more reliable television revenue stream for ’26 and beyond.
The Nationals pushed their competitive balance tax payrolls into the $200MM range each season between 2017-19, according to the Cot’s Baseball Contracts estimates. They’ve dramatically cut spending since winning the World Series six years ago. That coincided with an unsuccessful attempt by the Lerner family to sell the franchise in 2022-23. It has overlapped with a five-year rebuild that saw the team trade Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Max Scherzer in blockbusters to restock the farm system. Between the returns in those trades and the selection of Dylan Crews with the second overall pick in 2023, the Nats have built an encouraging core.
It doesn’t seem they feel that relatively young group is quite ready to take the next step. They shied away from anything more than affordable two-year commitments this offseason. Their estimated $137MM luxury tax payroll (via RosterResource) isn’t meaningfully different from last year’s $140.6MM year-end mark. Owner Mark Lerner justified the relatively quiet winter by opining that the team was probably still a season away from being a true contender.
“When (GM Mike Rizzo) calls me in and says, ‘We really need to think about it,’ for next winter, we’ll talk about it,” Lerner said last month. “Right now, he doesn’t think — and I agree with him: There’s no point in getting a superstar and paying him hundreds of millions of dollars to win two or three more games. You’ve got to wait until — like Jayson [Werth]. Jayson was right on the cusp of [the team] being really good, and it took us to the next level. That’s the ideal situation.“
Walgreens has the chance to do the funniest thing
I’ve been a Nats fan since before Nationals Park, and while I’m devastated it won’t be called that in the next year or two, Walgreens would be an absolutely acceptable corporate sponsor.
Walgreens Park or BMO Field would be the choices of a lifetime for the Nats.
National Car Rental Park
MASN Park.
No brand will sign unless it can deferred until 2049
I can’t wait for Elon musk to buy the naming rights and instead of naming it Tesla park he would name it something like No More Global Warming Field
Names of stadiums have gotten worse ever since climate pledge arena…..
The Cubs may not get millions in naming right, but Wrigley is getting free advertising.
Get your skis shined up
Grab a stick of Juicy Fruit
The taste is gonna move ya
“Hey Stephen, we were thinking instead of paying you that $70 million we still owe you over the next 2 years we could just name the park Strasburg Stadium until 2027?”
BroCoinsRus field
Walgreens Park
Deferred Payments Field
MASN Settlement Park
All great options.
Let’s hope the Nats’ stadium doesn’t become Prime Park or Bud Field.
Bigly Field
It’s the most beautiful ballpark. Everyone says so.
Like no one has ever seen before.
These huge batters come up to me thanking me and they’re crying. They say Sir, before you became president they weren’t allowed to hit homers. Now they hit big beautiful homers, these big muscle men. Home runs like nobody’s seen before. And we’re gonna hit home runs, so many big blasts you won’t believe. So that’s what we are going to do.
@differentbears,
As usual, you are on fire. Thank you for the belly laughs.
Coming from the bad boy of the Baby of the Year competition, that’s high praise.
And,as usual, he’d be right.
Oh Phil,
You rascal!
When it was built, some Nats fans thought Old Navy would be the perfect sponsor since the stadium is on the edge of the Navy Yard neighborhood.
I seem to recall there was once a plan in the works for the National Guard to buy the naming rights to RFK during the Nationals first season in DC.
No govt entity is going to put out the dollars to name a MLB stadium at this point. Absolutely no chance with the current regime’s cuts.
Nor should they be.
The nearby soccer stadium is Audi Field, they should name it Porsche Park.
Oh dear god, he’s going to make it Trump Park, isn’t he?
The Mango Messiah knows more about baseball than, than anyone. Believe me.
How about Elon Musk DOGE Field? Where all the seats are removed but concessions still double in price.
I like where you’re going with this, but offer a slight adjustment: Elon Musk DOGSH¡T Field.
“The change is only really relevant to fans in the sense that it could impact the team’s spending habits”
As someone who loathes ads on jerseys, I disagree.
Bitcoin park. It’s DC people.
Do the naming rights have tariffs on it?
Only if a foreign company buys the naming rights.
Yuge tariffs. Big, beautiful tariffs, like no one has ever seen before.
Sorry, but the construction was funded by the taxpayers, so name it after them, not some corporation which has no allegiance to the area. Selling the naming rights to a corporation is just another example of corporate welfare that we pay for.
How about calling it Trump Stadium? Very patriotic. Otherwise, I am dead set against befouling the Nats’ venue with a crass “naming rights deal.” I was born and raised in DC and remain an avid Nats fan. The Nation’s Capital should not be saddled with a venue sporting a corporate sponsorship name. It’s gross. For once, could people in charge do something with class and not sell their souls to the highest bidder?Nationals Park is a good name. It bespeaks the team we love to root for.