Nothing Is Just a Training Ground Anymore

A football club used to have a fairly obvious list of things it could sell. The shirt. The stadium. The advertising boards. The front of the jersey. Then came the sleeve, the training kit, hospitality, digital content and a growing number of smaller sponsorship categories.

Now, another line is disappearing. The line between the places a football club uses and the assets it can commercialise. A training ground is no longer necessarily just a training ground. It can be a brand, and increasingly, it is.

From the stadium to the training ground: football's new commercial assets

Taken together, these deals suggest something bigger is happening.

Liverpool's training centre became the AXA Training Centre after the insurer expanded its existing partnership with the club. The relationship connected AXA not only with the facility itself, but with training, wellbeing and performance, areas that naturally fit the company's positioning.

Inter followed a similar model when its Appiano Gentile complex became the BPER Training Centre in memory of Angelo Moratti. BPER's rights extended beyond the building: the bank also became training-kit sleeve partner and received additional visibility around San Siro.

AC Milan took the idea into more sensitive territory. In 2025, Clivet became the first-ever naming rights partner of Milanello, one of the most recognisable training environments in European football. The new name "Centro Sportivo Milanello powered by Clivet" was not presented simply as a sign above the entrance. The partnership was built around climate, efficiency, air quality, wellbeing and performance, while Clivet also became a training-kit sleeve partner.

And now Benfica has taken the same logic further. Its Training and Development Center in Seixal became the adidas Benfica Campus as part of an extended partnership running through 2033. Newcastle's Darsley Park has also become The KNOX, with KNOX receiving training-kit sleeve rights across the men's, women's and academy teams.

Different clubs. Different industries. Different commercial agreements. But the underlying idea is the same. The football club is discovering new inventory inside the club it already has.

Why football clubs are selling training ground naming rights

There is something important happening beneath the naming. For decades, sponsorship largely meant attaching a brand to something that already attracted attention. A shirt, a stadium, a television broadcast, an advertising board. But a training centre offers something different: context.

It is where players work. Where teams prepare. Where young players develop. Where managers speak to the media. Where content is produced. The sponsor is not simply buying physical space. It is buying association with a particular part of the football process. Performance, development, preparation, innovation, youth, wellbeing.
That makes training-ground sponsorship potentially more powerful than a simple logo placement, provided the connection between the brand and the asset is credible.

Football's physical ecosystem is becoming a media ecosystem

There is another reason these assets have become more valuable. Training grounds are no longer invisible. They are content factories. Players arrive there, teams train there, managers speak there, injuries are announced there, new signings are introduced there, academy players develop there, behind-the-scenes footage comes from there, and club television broadcasts from there.

Milanello, for example, has its own media infrastructure, including television studios, press facilities and extensive cabling for Milan TV. That changes the economics. A sponsor attached to a training centre is not necessarily buying a sign on a building. It is potentially buying repeated appearances inside the club's daily storytelling.

The physical asset becomes a media asset. And the media asset becomes part of the brand.

The American influence on football sponsorship

There is something slightly unfamiliar about this to many European football supporters. Part of that discomfort comes from culture.

In North American professional sports, attaching corporate names to training and performance facilities has long been established practice. Arenas, stadiums, training facilities and other sports properties routinely carry commercial names.

European football developed differently. A training ground can be part of club mythology. A stadium can be part of a city's identity. A name can carry decades of memories that have nothing to do with commerce.

That makes the growing use of naming rights around European football feel, in some ways, like a form of Americanisation of the sports business model. Not because European clubs are copying American sports wholesale. But because the underlying commercial philosophy is similar: If a physical asset attracts attention, creates association and can be packaged into a partnership, it can potentially be sold.

The interesting question is not whether that is good or bad. The interesting question is where the line should be.

The next frontier is not bigger. It is deeper.

The next generation of sponsorship may be less about size and more about integration. For years, football sponsorship was largely about finding a bigger surface. Bigger logo. Bigger LED board. Bigger shirt deal. Bigger stadium naming rights. But the next generation of sponsorship may be less about size and more about integration.

A club can take an existing asset and build an entire commercial proposition around it. A training centre can become a performance partnership. An academy can become a development partnership. A hospitality space can become an experience brand. A fan zone can become a destination. A technology partner can become part of the infrastructure.

The commercial department is no longer simply asking:

Where can we put the logo?

It is asking:

What does this part of the club mean, and which brand can add something to that meaning?

That is a much more interesting question.

The risk of over-commercialising football clubs

Because there is a danger here. Once clubs realise that almost everything can be monetised, the temptation is obvious. Sell the training ground. The lounge. The fan zone. The academy. Every available surface.

Eventually, the club risks creating an environment where the supporter no longer knows where the club ends and the sponsorship begins. And that is where a smart commercial strategy can turn into a branding problem.

Milanello is a particularly useful example precisely because of its history. AC Milan has described the facility as a symbol of heritage, excellence and growth, a place deeply connected with the identity of the club. Putting a commercial name next to that heritage therefore requires more than a cheque. It requires credibility. The sponsor has to earn its place. The club has to protect the meaning of the asset. And the partnership has to feel like an extension of the story rather than an interruption of it.

A supporter can accept a sponsor becoming part of the environment when the partnership adds something to that environment. What feels different is when the club appears to have sold part of its identity simply because someone was willing to pay for it.

When brand integration becomes brand intrusion

That may ultimately be the test for the next generation of football sponsorship.

Not:

How much money did the club make?

But:

Does the partnership make sense to people who actually care about the club?

The best commercial integrations should make the asset feel more relevant, not less. They should give the sponsor a legitimate role. They should give the club something beyond revenue. And ideally, they should give supporters a reason to understand why those two brands belong together. That is much harder than selling a naming right, but it is also much more valuable.

Outside the four lines

Football clubs are sitting on an enormous amount of commercial real estate that has historically been treated simply as infrastructure. That is changing. The training ground is becoming an asset. The academy is becoming an asset. The fan zone is becoming an asset. The everyday life of a football club is becoming part of its commercial inventory.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. In fact, when done properly, it can be a brilliant form of brand integration. But football has to remember something that spreadsheets cannot measure. There is a very thin line between a sponsor becoming part of the club's story and the club's story becoming part of the sponsor's advertising.

Cross that line, and what looked like a clever commercial deal can quickly become a branding failure. The opportunity is not to put a name on everything. It is to know what deserves a name, and why. Outside the four lines, the game is becoming more commercial. The smartest clubs will be the ones that know where to stop.