A £750 million stadium getting its name from a Liverpool law firm at £10 million a year. That’s the new reality for Everton, who confirmed in May 2025 that their waterside home at Bramley-Moore Dock will be called the Hill Dickinson Stadium. The timing — three months before the 2025/26 season — gives supporters a runway to get used to a change that blends hard cash with a long, local story.
The 53,000-seat venue on the River Mersey replaces Goodison Park, the club’s home since 1892. During construction it was “Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium,” or simply “Everton Stadium.” On opening, it becomes the eighth-largest stadium in England and the eleventh in Britain, with commitments to host UEFA Euro 2028 games and the 2025 Rugby League Ashes. For Everton, it’s more than a new ground. It’s a reset of how the club makes money, how it’s seen, and how it lives in its city.
What the naming-rights deal really buys
Everton’s agreement with Hill Dickinson is reportedly worth £10 million per season over ten years. That’s serious, predictable income at a time when Premier League clubs are under tighter financial scrutiny. After recent Profit and Sustainability Rule charges across the league — Everton included — recurring commercial revenue is gold. A stand naming or shirt sleeve deal won’t shift the needle like this. A stadium deal does.
How does £10 million a year stack up? In the UK, naming-rights prices vary widely. The very top, globally famous clubs with Champions League pedigree can chase bigger numbers. Others land in the single-digit to low-teens range annually. Everton’s figure sits near the higher end for a non-Champions League club, helped by a brand-new build, national tournament matches, and a clean slate without a legacy name to fight against.
And that clean slate matters. Clubs with historic stadium names often meet fan resistance — sometimes fierce — when a sponsor takes over. Everton’s move is different. Goodison Park stays Goodison in memory and history. The new site never had a fan-forged identity, so the naming conversation starts on neutral ground. That’s partly why the deal was possible at this price point.
The club has framed the partnership as more than a logo on the roof. Hill Dickinson isn’t just a local business; it’s part of Everton’s own backstory. The firm’s association with the club stretches back over a century, connected to figures like Will Cuff — an early power-broker in Everton’s rise who is still talked about as part of the club’s DNA. That heritage pitch doesn’t change the commercial reality, but it does make the name feel less parachuted-in than most.
Money from naming rights feeds a bigger shift. Goodison’s capacity and hospitality were capped by its age and footprint. The new stadium increases matchday revenue through more seats, more premium areas, and flexible concourses designed for year-round use. Retail, events, conferences — that’s where modern clubs find margin. Everton are late to the party, but the stadium gives them the tools.
Expect the club to push three things hard: hospitality packages, non-matchday events, and international profile. A waterfront ground landing Euro 2028 games sells itself to tourists and sponsors. Add a decade-long name that media will repeat every matchday, and you get compounding brand value. For a club that has had to fight off-field headwinds, the stability of a fixed-price deal plus a scalable stadium business is exactly the model they’ve been missing.
A name with roots — and a city still split
The badge on the façade is the easy part. The harder bit is squaring the development with Liverpool’s cultural politics. UNESCO stripped the city’s Maritime Mercantile City of World Heritage status in July 2021, citing modern waterfront projects. The stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock was singled out as having “a completely unacceptable major adverse impact” on the site’s authenticity and integrity. For preservationists, that stung. For the city’s growth advocates, it was the price of moving forward.
Everton argue the development breathes life into a long-underused dock, anchors a mixed-use district, and creates jobs. Club-commissioned economic analysis has projected more than a billion pounds of activity across construction and early operations, plus thousands of roles on-site and in the supply chain. The surrounding plan points to shops, housing, gym facilities, and public spaces that should keep the waterfront busy beyond matchdays.
Design touches try to bridge old and new. The architecture leans on brick and steel to mirror historic dockside warehouses. The club has highlighted the conservation of key dock features and the reuse of materials where possible. Inside, the layout promises a louder single-tier home end, improved accessibility, and modern concessions aimed at easing those notorious halftime queues.
Transport will be watched closely once the turnstiles spin. Matchday routes will lean on Merseyrail stations, shuttle services, walking corridors, and staggered egress. That’s where new stadiums often get judged in their first months — not just on atmosphere, but on how painless it is to arrive, get a pint, and get home. Everton have run dry runs and test events to tune the system, but the proof comes on a wet Sunday after a goalless draw.
For supporters, the name itself will land in tiers. Some will call it Hill Dickinson Stadium from day one. Others will cling to “Bramley-Moore.” A few will shorten it to “the Dock.” That’s normal. Arsenal had “Ashburton Grove” shadows long after the Emirates deal. City had fans who wouldn’t say “Etihad” for years. Names stick over time because of memories — last-minute winners, European nights, cup runs — not press releases. That’s the real test waiting for Everton’s new home.
The Goodison question won’t go away either. You don’t easily replace a place where generations stood with their dads and grandparents. The club’s Goodison Park Legacy Project is meant to keep that connection alive through community use on the old site, rather than leaving a hole in the middle of L4. How well that’s done will shape how fans feel about the move a decade from now.
In football terms, the timing of the naming announcement makes sense. It lands before season tickets, hospitality packages, and commercial campaigns go to print. It gives broadcasters time to bake the new name into their graphics. It gives the club a clean commercial launch as it seeks more partners who want to be part of a fresh story rather than the closing chapter at Goodison.
There’s also psychology at work. New ground, new visuals, new revenue stream — it signals momentum. Everton have spent recent seasons firefighting off the pitch while trying to stabilize on it. A long-term naming partner doesn’t fix recruitment or results, but it says the club’s commercial engine is finally aligned with its infrastructure. If the team matches that with solid football, the name will fade into the background hum of matchday. If results nosedive, critics will say a law firm can’t paper over cracks. That’s how this business goes.
For Hill Dickinson, the calculation is visibility and roots. Stadium naming delivers repetitive, national exposure every weekend and midweek. A local firm backing a local institution plays well in Liverpool, and the century-old relationship lends credibility that a distant sponsor wouldn’t have. The trade-off is simple: lend your name to Everton’s story, and you get written into it.
What about the wider market? The Premier League has a mixed record on stadium naming. Arsenal’s Emirates and Manchester City’s Etihad are established. West Ham’s London Stadium keeps its civic name. Tottenham’s state-of-the-art home searched long and hard for a naming partner. Tradition, politics, and price all bite. Everton have threaded a path through that — new stadium, local partner, long relationship, clear need — that many clubs would envy.
The football calendar will do the rest. Euro 2028 games bake the ground into international memory. The Rugby League Ashes brings a different audience to the Mersey. Concerts and events will test the acoustics and the transport plan. One big night can shift how a city talks about a building. Everton are betting on a lot of big nights.
Under the surface, this is about margins. More seats and hospitality raise matchday revenue. A reliable naming-rights stream cushions the books. Non-matchday use fills the calendar. All of it gives Everton room to make better decisions on the squad without tripping financial rules. The old model relied on hope and player trading. The new model leans on infrastructure and partnerships. That’s the point of building a modern stadium in the first place.
So yes, it’s a law firm’s name on a football ground. Some will wince, some will shrug, some will wear it proudly on a scarf. But the story behind it — a century of shared history, a city remaking a dock, a club trying to get its house in order — is bigger than the sign above the turnstiles. If the football is good, the Hill Dickinson name will become part of the scenery. If the football is great, it’ll be the backdrop to the moments fans never forget.