Steelers finalize stadium name change, drawing the ire of fans

Steelers New Stadium Acrisure Field

Acrisure, if anything, is definitely not Pittsburgh based if you look at its history. It was founded in 2005 and later purchased by Genstar Capital in 2013. The company is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and is the 8th largest insurance broker in the world and yet, for many totally obscure as well.

They only had one real tie to the Pittsburgh community, which came in 2019 it acquired Pittsburgh-based Tulco Labs. So how does an out-of-market semi-obscure company that many were unfamiliar with, at least in that you may not have heard the name before, acquire naming rights to the Steelers home Field?

In this case, the company had a value of approximately $23 billion and had money to spend. When Heinz inked their deal, they paid $57 million over 20 years. That came to about $2.85 million a year. Considering the Steelers were at the forefront of naming rights when they inked the deal,  other deals later eclipsed theirs. In this case, the Steelers and Acrisure inked an agreement in which they will pay $10 annually over 15 years.

The deal is hardly unusual in that when it comes to naming rights of other pro sports stadiums, insurance companies have the naming rights to 12 stadiums. So the fact they acquired the rights was probably inevitable.