McDonald's signed a long-term naming-rights agreement with the Chicago Fire for the club's $750 million stadium rising at The 78, the mixed-use development on the city's Near South Side. The venue will be called McDonald's Park when it opens in 2028. Terms were not disclosed, but people familiar with MLS stadium deals say naming packages at new builds typically run $7 million to $12 million annually for tenures of fifteen to twenty years. The Fire declined to comment on duration or annual value.

The deal includes a flagship McDonald's restaurant inside the stadium complex. The company, which relocated its global headquarters from Oak Brook to Chicago's West Loop in 2018, framed the commitment as a doubling-down on the city after years of suburban drift among corporate tenants. McDonald's had flirted with Texas and other states during site-selection phases in the mid-2010s but ultimately chose Chicago for proximity to O'Hare, agency talent, and brand visibility. The Fire stadium gives the company a consumer-facing anchor in a neighborhood that will house 13,000 residential units and 3 million square feet of retail and office space when The 78 is complete in the early 2030s.

For the Fire, the McDonald's name solves two problems. First, it locks in a blue-chip sponsor before construction debt matures, reducing refinancing risk for majority owner Joe Mansueto. Second, it signals to corporate Chicago that the club is no longer the Bridgeview exile playing 17 miles from downtown in a venue that lost money every year from 2006 to 2019. The Fire moved back to Soldier Field in 2020, but that arrangement was always interim. The new stadium, designed by Populous, will seat 25,000 with expansion capability to 30,000 for international friendlies and playoff runs. Crucially, the Fire will own the building, a shift from the lease structure that drained cash at Toyota Park. MLS teams that own their venues—LAFC, Austin FC, Nashville SC—trade at enterprise-value multiples 1.4x to 1.8x higher than lease tenants, per recent broker comps.

The McDonald's deal also resets the naming-rights comp set for MLS. Recent marks include $6 million annually for Lower.com Field in Columbus (fintech startup, ten-year term) and $8 million annually for BMO Stadium in Los Angeles (bank, fifteen-year term). If McDonald's is paying near the high end of that range, the Fire are capturing value that eluded them in Bridgeview, where Toyota paid roughly $4 million per year in inflation-adjusted dollars for a far weaker asset. The gap reflects both MLS's growth—average team valuation has climbed from $157 million in 2015 to $678 million in 2024—and the Fire's improved positioning. The 78 sits adjacent to McCormick Place, the city's convention center, and two miles south of Millennium Park. Walk-up traffic will include tourists, conventioneers, and residents of the South Loop and Chinatown, a catchment the Bridgeview site never had.

The restaurant component is worth watching. McDonald's has experimented with flagship locations—its Times Square store in New York and the Rock N Roll McDonald's in Chicago both served as brand showcases before closing or downsizing. The Fire venue could house a test kitchen for menu innovation or a prototype for automated ordering, areas where McDonald's has invested heavily since 2020. If the company uses the space to debut products or technology, the stadium becomes a marketing platform beyond signage, justifying a premium on the naming fee. The Fire, meanwhile, gain a high-volume tenant that drives foot traffic on non-matchdays, a critical revenue lever for soccer-specific stadiums that sit empty 320 days per year.

Mansueto, who bought the Fire for $60 million in 2019, has now secured the naming deal, the stadium site, and zoning approvals. The next milestones are groundbreaking, expected in late 2025, and the hiring of a general manager to replace outgoing sporting director Georg Heitz, who left in January. The Fire finished 11th in the Eastern Conference last season and have not won a playoff game since 2017. On-field improvement matters less for stadium economics than for suite and sponsorship renewals, which peak in winning years. The club has sold 18 of 40 planned suites in the new building, per a person briefed on sales. Closing the remaining inventory before opening day will depend partly on whether the Fire can field a competitive roster by 2027, the final season at Soldier Field.

Watch for McDonald's to announce activation plans around the Fire's jersey sponsorship, which is held by Adidas-adjacent brands but expires after the 2026 season. If McDonald's takes the front-of-shirt position, the combined deal value could approach $20 million annually, placing the Fire in the top tier of MLS commercial partnerships alongside Atlanta United and LAFC. The company has never sponsored an MLS jersey but has deep soccer ties globally, including a long-running FIFA partnership that ended in 2018. A Chicago Fire kit deal would mark a return to the sport and a bet that MLS's North American growth justifies brand spend that once flowed to UEFA and CONMEBOL properties.

The restaurant opens with the stadium in 2028. Mansueto will be seventy-two.