Doncaster Rovers chief on why club has rebranded their stadium as 'Club Doncaster Sports Village'
Rovers’ stadium is now on its third different name since it opened back in 2007
There's been a fair bit of change at Doncaster Rovers in recent months but arguably one of the biggest has been the rebranding of the stadium name.
After a four-and-a-half year stint as the Eco-Power Stadium, the venue is now known as Club Doncaster Sports Village. The decision was announced earlier this summer with the club saying at the time that the name change marked "the next chapter in the club’s long-term vision to build a sporting and community destination at the heart of South Yorkshire."
Some have questioned whether the decision to drop a sponsor's name has cost the club money, but in a wide-ranging interview with local media last week chief executive Gavin Baldwin says that is not the case.
When asked about a perceived negative reaction to the name change, Baldwin said: "I've not received that negative opinion, I will be honest.
"We've had a lot of compliments for the way that we've done it. We genuinely value Club Doncaster and the contribution it makes to the playing budget. We believe there's a value in Club Doncaster, and we believe that value will increase significantly. Therefore, why don't we market ourselves as well as a company based somewhere else in the world, for instance? That was the reason for the decision.
"A lot of our sponsors have come on board because they welcome the fact that we value ourselves. We think we're quite good with what we do. We think we're quite good in the community. We think we're quite good at hopefully pulling a team together. Therefore, we want to market ourselves. We want to increase the value of our product. But we wanted to do more. We wanted to generate money for the teams. Therefore, we're extremely ambitious. Also, the reason is that we're looking to expand the village. That's not a secret.
“We're in active conversations with the council at the moment, expending the geographical lease so that we can put more facilities on the grassed area, outside hospitality, for instance, to serve the community better but also give Doncaster Rovers greater resilience."
On the potential for the name to change again, should a sponsor wish to attach their name to the ground Baldwin added: "I think if that happened, it would be with a change of ownership, and there's no plan for a change of ownership at this stage. To stress as well, the budget for commercial didn't go down because we didn't give it a naming rights or sell the name rights. The budget has gone up by probably about 25 per cent. And that is based on the ambition of having a valuable product to sell."