The chairman of the National Credit Union Administration earlier this year questioned whether credit unions should be spending the money on naming rights for sports stadiums, suggesting the money may be better spent on helping their members.
During a Q&A in February with the Brookings Institution’s Aaron Klein, NCUA Chairman Todd Harper was asked about nonprofit credit unions spending millions of dollars on naming rights of sports stadiums and other public facilities. One example cited by the moderator was the decision by Golden 1 Credit Union in Sacramento to reportedly spend $120 million for the naming rights to home stadium of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. Since then, the Virginia-based Northwest Federal Credit Union acquired the naming rights to NFL’s Washington Commanders home stadium in a deal estimated to cost more than $7.5 million a year.
Harper acknowledged that in recent years, credit unions have stepped up their presence on airwaves, the internet and on sports stadiums. “Certainly, if I were on a credit union board, I would be advocating that rather than spending that money necessarily on naming rights, I’d be pointing in the direction of what can we do to lower the prices of our loans and increase the service to our members,” he said.
Other examples of credit unions buying up naming rights include a 2022 multimillion-dollar branding agreement between PenFed Credit Union and Washington Dulles International Airport, and a 2023 deal in which Mountain America Credit Union paid more than $50 million for the naming rights to Arizona State University’s football stadium.
In a September letter to the editor in the Washington Post, American Bankers Association President and CEO Rob Nichols questioned how credit unions — nonprofits meant to serve customers “of modest means” with a common bond — could keep spending over millions of dollars on advertising to expand their memberships.
“Absent regular congressional oversight, credit unions have expanded far beyond their statutory mission and nonprofit structure at the expense of their member-owners and American taxpayers,” Nichols said. “The fact that a not-for-profit, tax-exempt credit union just spent more than $7.5 million to stick its name on our local NFL stadium should encourage lawmakers to continue asking tough questions.”
