BofA pays scalper price to put name on stadium.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler - Bank of America Corp.

They lost in the Super Bowl, but there's little question the Carolina Panthers won big with a new naming-rights deal for their stadium in Charlotte. Beginning with the 2004 National Football League season, Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. will pay the team a reported $7 million annually for 20 years for the right to call it Bank of America Stadium.

That's an increase of nearly 160% over the $2.7 million a year paid by Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson for the first eight years of the stadium's existence. Among NFL teams, only the Houston Texans, at $10 million a year from Houston-based Reliant Resources, and the Washington Redskins, at $7.6 million from Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx, have bigger deals.

BofA already was a primary sponsor for the team, which guaranteed it advertising space inside the stadium. And bank officials believe they got a good deal on the naming rights, which should give the bank added exposure after the Panthers' Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots. "I hope customers and associates throughout this area will feel an extra measure of pride and home-field advantage every time they see Bank of America Stadium," says Ken Lewis, BofA chairman and CEO.

So the Panthers are happy, and bank officials are happy, but what about BofA shareholders? That could be a different matter, says Michael Leeds, an economics professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Leeds and his wife, Eva, an economics professor at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., have...