And so, after months of speculation, the day is nearly upon us, when Pride Park Stadium is to be renamed .... drum roll please... The 'iPro Stadium'.

Supporters and the club’s management alike will be hoping that the club will be able to make use of the financial and advertising advantages offered by a naming agreement with the energy drinks branch of the mighty — and irrepressibly cool — Apple empire.

Actually, that last bit was just a (very bad) joke as it seems since Apple took over the world, adding an 'i' before things makes them more marketable. Perhaps I should speak to our site editor about a change to 'iRamZone'.

In reality, iPro, according to the Derby Evening Telegraph, is a company with a proud history, formed (way) back in 2012, and “sells isotonic drinks, nutrition and health foods, and sports gear and accessories".

The 10 year deal will see the club receive £7m, apparently one of the biggest stadium naming rights deals for a club outside the country’s top division. The Rams thus follow the lead of fellow Championship clubs Leicester, Wigan, Bolton, Brighton, and Huddersfield to either name or rename their stadiums (no longer “grounds”) after corporate sponsors.

In a glorious piece of corporate waffle that we’ve come to expect from football owners and administrators, County’s chief executive Sam Rush said, “To ensure that Derby County remains as competitive as possible we need to explore all forms of revenue generation. Stadium naming rights is a key asset for the club and we are delighted that we have been able to reach an agreement with iPro”.

Perhaps I’m being unduly cynical. After all, although £7m doesn’t sound like very much, it is hardly to be sniffed at either. If the sponsorship money is paid over a 10 year period, that equates to the signing of one decent Championship player every season.

The question of whether the terms of the agreement would change if Derby gets into the more lucrative Premier League, making the iPro brand immeasurably more visible, is one that should be asked, however.

Furthermore, if this process continues throughout the football world and more and more clubs follow suit, then we’d come to suffer a significant financial — and thus competitive — disadvantage. Nevertheless, a moral issue still presents itself: to what extent do financial imperatives override club traditions?

The re-naming of club stadiums is certainly an invidious trend. When Newcastle United temporarily renamed St. James’ Park the Sports Direct Arena, after owner Mike Ashley’s own company, there was uproar amongst the Geordie faithful.

Bury have recently renamed their stadium the JD Stadium, and, in possibly the worst renaming deal ever made, York City’s Bootham Crescent was known as Kit Kat Crescent from 2005 until 2010, after a sponsorship deal with Nestlé, a multi - national conglomerate with a proud history of social activism in Africa.

However, when it comes to the naming of new stadiums, such as Arsenal’s Emirates, the reasons for complaint are fewer. After all, if the stadium is new, there is no tradition to feel attached to.

Bolton Wanderers’ Reebok Stadium was built, and therefore named, in conjunction with its eponymous sponsors. Arsenal will soon be renegotiating their sponsorship deal with the UAE airline, and will surely be looking to cash in on a deal that was originally hugely undervalued, although the company did originally subsidise the cost of the Gunner’s stadium. The less said about the financial doping involved at Manchester City, the better.

Derby County find themselves somewhat stuck in the middle here. The Rams moved into Pride Park Stadium in 1997, after a ceremonial unveiling by the Queen. That’s 16 years — hardly enough time for fans to develop much of an emotional attachment.

On discussing the stadium name change in the pub last week with friends, one Mansfield Town supporter bemoaned the whole sorry situation. However, once I explained that the name Pride Park holds precisely zero meaning or affection for Derby fans, beside the name of the stadium, he recanted, remarking that Pride Park is a ridiculous name for a stadium. “Pride?”, he commented. “In what?” And this coming from a Mansfield fan. But still…

I agree. When you think about it, “Pride Park Stadium” is a silly name for a stadium. Speaking as someone who basically grew up on the Pop Side, even now I sometimes find myself telling people that Derby play at the Baseball Ground, before I catch myself.

The name “Baseball Ground” is altogether more evocative, distinctive, and traditional, although it may simply be the case that over one hundred years of tradition has softened our ears to the name.

But one way or the other, Pride Park has been the name of our ground for only 16 years, and so we can feel no great loss that it has been renamed.

But even still, returning to the moral issue mentioned above, despite the fact that no real traditions are being compromised for the sake of a few quick bucks from corporate sponsors, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

As more and more clubs fall in line and prostitute themselves in this way, the only real practical danger is that those who refuse or who cannot take up such sponsorships will fall behind and lose a competitive advantage.

From the moral point of view, however, we have to ask ourselves how long will it be, for example, until the shirts of national teams carry the names of sponsors? And although they are well-established Bundesliga teams, Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg are derided by German football fans, and Red Bull Salzburg in Austria would be considered a joke if anyone even took them seriously enough.

I use the word “prostitute” carefully here. Many clubs resist the swelling tide of corporate renaming, but they will soon form a minority, especially as so many clubs contemplate moving to new high-tech stadiums and seek outside funding.

Football continues to make a whore of itself, selling itself off to the highest bidder in an endless scramble towards some kind of moral nadir. That Derby County are the latest entrants into this unseemly game should be no real surprise.

The only saving grace is that the name Pride Park has not had time to pass into the romantic collective consciousness of Derby fans. Where will it end? With the club being renamed The Derby Rams?

It may sound unlikely, but ask a Hull City or Cardiff City fan what they think of the idea, and they’ll scoff.

But don’t worry, Rams fans — as football continues to eat itself, the moral depths to which clubs will sink will never cease to amaze us.

About The Author:

Charlie Robinson has joined RamZone as a regular columnist for the site. A life long Rams fan who teaches philosophy and sport for a university in Prague, he has written about various football related subjects for websites and magazines.

Welcome to the team Charlie!

Photo: Action Images

pkay_brum added 13:04 - Dec 8 I think the whole iPro is interesting; a growing drinks' company and a football club whose owners seem to have (finally) thrown off the stifling mentality of moribund Championship existence. I don't quite see the 'tradition' being thrown out when you remember that 'Pride Park' was simply a brownfield government redevelopment scheme that Derby plugged into under 'Tarzan' Heseltine. You could say that Pickering, Gadsby, Loring et al failed to capitalise on naming rights in the mid-90s when the timing would have been perfect - promotion under Smith & McClaren and a new stadium boasting a Premier League product. Those were, though, very early days in UK stadium naming deals. As DCFC apparently now intend to re-emerge and become an established Premier League team, the club has 'up-marketed' itself. Realistically, GSE's ownership could otherwise be perceived as simply retaining a European 'satellite' out-base that served to assist their corporate networking marketing machine. Glick was the glad-hander making connections, Rush is a more switched-on football operator who has no illusions that his and GSE's future - after years of stasis - has to be centred around and attractive football product. One of GSE's key activities their naming rights division; when asked (three years ago) about plans for DCFC here, Glick only said: 'when the time is right'. As Rush has said, marketing a Championship side, and a club without the attraction of a new stadium build, is disadvantageous - but this is that 'right time' regarding GSE's policy at Derby. Happily, the team is resurgent - though as far as is known, the iPro deal isn't renegotiable at Prem level status. FIFA and Uefa club and international competitions are brimming with sponsor deals; there's hardly a stadium which hasn't got stands, roads, suites, or the stadium itself supported by key sponsorship deals, so an 'overall' stadium name is hardly an unexpected development. If that £700k (per annum) helps Derby to sign another Bryson or sign a better deal with a Will Hughes or Jeff Hendrick, is that a bad thing? (Note anyway that time-scale of the DCFC- iPro deal is 'weighted' regarding how the club receive the £7m sponsorship). It's 2013; many other clubs have benefited for years from significant naming rights' sponsorship. Rather than the emotive 'whore' or 'prostitution' labels, it should be acknowledged that a major tenet of the DCFC deal is to give the club higher revenues NOW - and with it, more comfort against FFP regulations and headroom in the transfer/salary market. We can go a little further to pay better players and reach that Premier League goal. God knows, economic strictures have strangled the club for long enough! I hope iPro succeed as a company, I hope DCFC gain Premier League status - that income would make the iPro deal just one of DCFC's growing income streams. The iPro deal would almost pale into insignificance financially (in the Prem) but both 'brands' can grow. Other sponsorship and corporate interest will multiply. However you look at it - at present, 'ordinary fans' cannot sustain the club; there are only so many expensive Kappa replica shirts or £230 season tickets you can sell to Derby supporters, aren't there?

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