Reports say Colts selling stadium name to Lucas Oil
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INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indianapolis Colts have sold the naming rights for their new downtown stadium to California-based Lucas Oil Co., according to media reports.
The team was expected on Wednesday to announce the deal with Lucas, which makes automotive lubricants and has several sponsorships in auto racing, Indianapolis television stations WISH and WRTV and The Indianapolis Star reported Monday, all citing sources they did not identify.
The company will pay the Colts $120 million over 20 years to have the 63,000-seat, retractable-roof facility named Lucas Oil Stadium, WISH reported.
Myra Borshoff Cook, a spokeswoman for Colts owner Jim Irsay, had no immediate comment on the reports. A receptionist at Covina, Calif.-based Lucas said no one with the company would comment and declined to take a message.
Lucas Oil already sponsors speedways, tractor pulls and boat races. The company's Web site lists itself as the official oil of the Indianapolis Colts.
Colts officials said in December that they hoped the team's success in recent seasons would help them bring attract possible corporate sponsors for the stadium.
Construction work on the $500 million stadium began last fall, with completion expected by the start of the 2008 football season.
The Colts will continue to play in the RCA Dome, their home since the team moved from Baltimore in 1984, until the new stadium is completed.
Once the stadium is built, the Indiana Convention Center will be expanded onto the current site of the RCA Dome. That project is slated to be finished by 2010 at a cost of more than $400 million.
Matt Steward, who directs the state's efforts to attract motorsports businesses, said that buying the stadium's naming rights would fit Lucas Oil's growth pattern.
"In the last several years, Lucas Oil has increased their marketing strategy by doing a lot of these sponsorships in the racing industry, and they are competing on an even level, I think, with the Penzoils and the Quaker States of the world," he said.
CNN
