Potentially excellent news from a financial point of view. We're currently getting a "reasonable" (by Premiership standards) 10 million a year for the shirt sponsorship alone, while the big hitters in the Premiership get double that. Throw in a few million for the stadium naming rights and I'd expect our sponsorship income from shirts and stadium combined to rise to at least 15 million to make this worth our while.
Then again Sunderland's deal with Invest in Africa was reported to be worth an unbelievable 20 million a year, so it might well be substantially more than 15 million. If they pull of a significant rise in income their decision to rename SJP would be at least partly vindicated.
Now for that rise in income to be translated to some more investment in the footballing side of the business please!