Introduction to Naming Rights for Public Facilities and Sponsors’ Local Contributions: A Case Study in Tokushima Prefecture

Abstract

This paper considers Tokushima Prefecture as a case study for the introduction of naming rights (NR) for public facilities and sponsors’ intentions. Thus, this study clarifies the relationship between sponsors’ contributions to local communities and the significance of NR as a means to secure sources of a strategy for managing and operating public facilities in the community. Tokushima Prefecture has thus far introduced NR for thirteen public facilities. However, the annual revenue contributed by NR to prefectural finances has amounted to a mere 0.01% of budget revenue (57.43 million yen). Sponsors’ applied for NR for the primary purpose of contributing to the local community by contributing to prefectural finances. These intentions, combined with the fact that the available scope for the naming of facilities was assumed to be only inside Tokushima Prefecture, suggest that the intentions were consistent with the reality of the naming availability with and intentions of the prefectural government.