The Denver Metropolitan Football Stadium District’s board members thought they would know by now whether Sports Authority’s name will come off Mile High Stadium before the NFL season starts Sept. 8.

But naming rights for the Denver Broncos’ home stadium still remains a giant, red question mark.

“As of this time, we don’t know,” general counsel Craig Umbaugh told the stadium district board Monday afternoon.

Not wanting to be caught flat-footed, the board on Monday initiated a request for proposal process to hire a marketing firm that could sell the naming-rights in the event the deal isn’t sold as part of Englewood-based Sports Authority’s bankruptcy liquidation.

As of Monday afternoon, the naming-rights contract inked in 2011 was still in the hands of Hilco Streambank, an firm hired to market and sell Sports Authority’s intellectual property assets, including the retailer’s trademark, e-commerce website and customer database.

Hilco Streambank set an internal deadline of 3 p.m. local time Monday for the bids, and there’s a July 8 deadline for objections, but there is no clear path for the stadium district just yet. As of 5:30 p.m. local time, the bidders had not been made public.

Hilco Streambank may have one or many bidders for assets, which may be sold as a whole or in parts. If a successful bidder emerges for the contract — which runs through 2020 and has just shy of $20 million still owed — the stadium district could use its previously reserved right to object, Umbaugh said.

If no bidder emerges, then it’s a matter of Sports Authority rejecting the contract, which the company has done with other agreements, including its sponsorship deals with the Denver Broncos and Colorado Rockies, he said.

Part of what the district is up against, he added, is that Sports Authority is up-to-date with its payments. The next one is due Aug. 1, and default would be triggered if no payment is made within 30 days of the deadline.

“Unfortunately, that’s kind of where we are,” Umbaugh said. “We’re in a bit of a waiting game.”

Aside from a letter of interest from cannabis vaporizer company O.penVape, the stadium district has not received a formal offer for the naming rights, officials have said. That lack of contact could be a factor of the bankruptcy process or the short-term nature of the contract, stadium district board chairman Ray Baker said.

Denver resident Karl Stecher, 79, a season ticket-holder of 41 years, urged that the board not enter into another sponsorship agreement and instead stick with Mile High as the name of the taxpayer-funded stadium.

Sports Authority failed to enhance the fan experience, he said, and then publicized only its name by having its brand overshadow the “Mile High Stadium” on the stadium’s logos.

“Why should Denver, the Mile High City, Colorado be for sale to some little company?” Stecher asked.

The capital obtained from a naming-rights contract could play a pivotal role in the continued efforts to extend the life of Mile High Stadium for the next 30, 40 or 50 years, Baker said.

A conditions assessment of the 16-year-old Mile High is underway and expected to be completed in the fall, district spokesman Matt Sugar said. “As things age, it takes dollars; over time, it’s going to take more dollars.”

Potential suitors

Generally, naming-rights contracts are timed around new stadium construction and major remodeling projects, said Darrin Duber-Smith, a marketing professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Given the age of Mile High, the stadium district and the Broncos would likely try to land a longer-term partner, he said.

“But I don’t know what the demand really is for Denver-area companies,” he said. “Do you really see any that are big enough to handle $9 million a year for 20 years?”

And those are just the base costs. To maximize the benefits of a naming-rights agreement, a sponsor should anticipate spending at least 1.4 times the annual payment in areas such as advertising and promotions, he said.

“The easiest way to throw away money is to put money into a sponsorship and let it be,” he said.

Sports Authority wasn’t large enough, he said, adding that Mile High naming rights was a knee-jerk reaction from the No. 4 sporting-goods company trying to one-up No. 1 Dick’s Sporting Goods, which put its name on the Colorado Rapids stadium.

So it raises the question, Duber-Smith said, what company has the financial wherewithal and longstanding stability to pay upward of $23 million for 20 years?

A successful suitor for Mile High’s naming rights will not be a cannabis company, and it likely will not be a company that already has secured the naming-rights for other sports arenas and stadiums, he said.

More than likely, it will be a large national or international company that wants to highlight or expand its footprint in Denver, he said.

“I’d be hard-pressed to think that somebody wouldn’t want to bite,” he said.

At roughly $6 million per year, the Sports Authority naming-rights agreement sits at the middle-to-low-end of NFL naming-rights deals, said Eric Smallwood, managing partner of Apex Marketing Group Inc., a St. Clair, Mich.-based sports marketing firm.

The annual payments range from Qualcomm’s $900,000-per-year deal in San Diego to AT&T’s $18-million-a-year sponsorship of the Dallas Cowboys stadium, according to Apex data.

Apex estimates the value of Mile High’s naming rights to just over $15 million per year to the sponsor. Depending on the location and potential benefits such as a Super Bowl win, those valuations typically range from $7.75 million to $35 million, Smallwood said.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “it’s the exposure. It’s the TV, the radio, it’s the cachet.”