Newcastle United's plans to sell the naming rights to St James' Park - now dubbed the sportsdirect.com @ stjames'park stadium in an attempt to attract a new sponsor - are doomed to failure, according to established wisdom in the industry.

Richard Worth, formerly the chief executive of the Sportfive agency and the man who led negotiations that saw the agency secure the rights to sell naming rights to Juventus' new stadium, was sceptical about the possibility of such measures working at an old ground. "Normally it doesn't work unless you're building a new arena," he told SportsPro, "because to suddenly change the name of whatever stadium it is to something else has an impact on tradition that is quite hard to get away from."

Stuart Priestley, the manager of group sponsorships at Emirates, the airline that sponsors Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, told SportsPro in August that the partnership had worked perfectly.

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"We always asked, before we signed the contract, 'are people really going to call it Emirates Stadium or Ashburton Grove?' That's the kind of risk that you take when you do a deal of this nature," he said. "From day one, though, everyone just embraced the name. And it doesn't matter where you are in the world – and I travel the world through my job and can watch Arsenal games wherever I am – the Emirates Stadium name always comes out and that is something we always hoped would happen, but there are no assurances. It's just been incredible."

Priestley, though, laughed off suggestions that a club in a 100-year-old stadium could successfully sell its naming rights. "You couldn't go to Old Trafford and rename it Emirates Stadium because people will always call it Old Trafford," he insisted.

Newcastle will receive no money for the current namechange. Sports Direct is the company owned by the club's owner, Mike Ashley.