Naming-rights deals squashed
Political arm twisting kills agreement with Roofclaim.com.
The last-minute political strong-arming that recently nixed UCF’s lucrative $35 million football stadium naming-rights deal with Roofclaim.com has also killed FAU’s already-announced $5 million sponsorship deal with Roofclaim.com, FAU confirmed Tuesday.
“FAU and Roofclaim.com have agreed it is in their mutual best interests to terminate Roofclaim.com’s naming rights for FAU Arena,” an FAU spokesperson said. “Neither FAU or Roofclaim.com will make any further comment at this time.”
Moral of this story: Not even college football has as much clout in the state of Florida as the persuasive political powerhouse known as “Big Insurance.”
Ironically, UCF’s deal with Roofclaim.com was negotiated by athletics director Danny White while FAU’s was choreographed by AD Brian White, Danny’s brother. The sibling ADs, according to sources, are “upset” and “livid” that their staffs worked so diligently to negotiate these hardto-come-by deals, only to have them killed by third-party political arm-twisting. According to Sentinel sources, the influential insurance industry and several prominent state politicians intervened behind the scenes to cancel the UCF and FAU naming-rights deals with Roofclaim.com.
The UCF deal would have been worth $35 million for 15 years — a figure that Danny White said in a December meeting of the UCF Foundation Board of Directors would be the “third or fourth” most lucrative naming-rights deal in the history of college football.
Even though UCF’s cashstrapped athletic program could desperately use that influx of
money, the deal was killed because Roofclaim.com is an archenemy of the state’s massive insurance conglomerate.
Roofclaim.com is a subsidiary of Jasper Contractors, a high-volume roofing company headquartered in Atlanta. The company, like many others in the industry, cashed in on a loophole that has cost insurance companies mega-millions of dollars. The loophole is a controversialbut-legal practice known as assignment of benefits — often referred to as AOB.
An AOB is a legally binding document through which a homeowner gives a third party (including companies such as Roofclaim.com) the right to negotiate, file insurance claims and collect insurance payments without the homeowner’s involvement. In May 2019, at the prodding of the insurance industry, the Florida Legislature overhauled the law governing AOB agreements.
It’s no secret UCF’s and FAU’s corporate partnerships with Roofclaim.com are the impetus for a controversial bill introduced in Tallahassee last month that would give the Legislature final approval on whether a sports stadium or arena at a public university can be branded after a company willing to pay for the naming rights.
A harbinger that state politicians and the insurance lobby would kill UCF’s naming-rights deal with Roofclaim.com came at the UCF Foundation Board of Directors meeting in December. Board member and treasurer Alan Florez, who admitted at the meeting that he himself has ties to the insurance industry, raised objections to the naming-rights deal with Roofclaim.com.
“It is my understanding and expectation that this will draw a negative reaction from policy makers, both locally and throughout the state,” Florez is heard saying during a recording of the meeting obtained by the Sentinel. “Is everyone aware and prepared for there to be a negative response to this, especially among our policymakers in the legislature?”
Even though the UCF Foundation Board ultimately recommended approval of the naming-rights agreement with Roofclaim.com during that December meeting, UCF interim President Thad Seymour shelved the splashy, profitable deal that Danny White had planned to unveil during bowl season.
The last-minute objections and political concerns about Roofclaim.com seemed to baffle White, especially since the company already is a corporate partner of UCF and has its name on the university’s football field and basketball court.
“The reality is their logo has been on our court and on our field for the last two years and we haven’t had one comment about this [AOB] topic,” White said of Roofclaim.com at the board meeting in December. “We’re in a situation where Roofclaim.com is tied to a political narrative, but their company specifically does not have a negative reputation at all.”
Cracked UCF Foundation Chairman John Euliano, who also backed the deal: “Let’s keep in mind we’re not naming the stadium Assignment of Benefits Field; it’s Roofclaim.com. … This is a slam dunk for UCF. … I don’t see any proof against this company that would lead us to just reject this donation.”
Obviously, the politicians in Tallahassee have other ideas.