The (fill in blank) Provo Recreation Center
Provo is making an all-out push to reduce the burden to taxpayers for the $39 million bond voters passed in 2010 for construction of a city recreation center. The pitch? Naming rights.
Private donors can pay to have a business or family name displayed at the entrance and inside one of 25 athletic facilities or meeing rooms. You can sponsor the aquatics area, for instance, for a mere $2.4 million — about half the construction cost. The competition pool will cost you $1.3 million. Rubberized track? $1 million. Weight lifting area? $750,000.
That’s the high end. Moving down the pecking order, the family locker lounge is a relative bargain at $350,000. Racquetball courts, $75,000 each. At the low end are the senior center for a paltry $50,000, tennis courts at $40,000, and party rooms at $30,000.
Selling naming rights actually sounds like a great idea. About $10 million can be raised, which is about 25 percent of the recreation center’s cost. If the new Utah Valley Convention Center can sell naming rights to the restrooms, the Provo Recreation Center can sell naming rights to its child-care center.
But why not be aggressive and get one single sponsor for the whole facility? Delta Airlines could be back in the hunt. But then Frontier Airlines would be more fitting as the sole airline servicing PVU. Or perhaps an individual philanthropist would step up with one big anonymous check. How about the generous person referenced on the back of the slick promotional materials? The notation reads: “Not printed at government expense. Funds for this and other materials were donated by a private citizen.” Sounds like the perfect person to cough up $10 million.