Acrisure CEO talks about his connection to the Steelers and how he got stadium naming rights

There might be more Pittsburgh connections to Acrisure than people realize.

When Michigan-based Acrisure bought the naming rights to the Steelers’ North Shore stadium, many people in Western Pennsylvania had never heard of the financial-tech insurance company. But in a Pittsburgh visit Monday, Acrisure CEO Greg Williams detailed the many ways he has been connected to the Steelers and the Steel City.

Williams, a Michigan native, said he and his wife have been going to Steelers games since the 1970s — though for decades he said he only attended Steelers road games, because tickets for games at the former Three Rivers Stadium were hard to come by.

“We used to go to Steelers games in other cities where we could get tickets,” Williams said at a talk hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council inside a suite at Acrisure Stadium.

“We couldn’t get tickets because they were too hot an item, but we can get tickets now,” he joked.

Last July, Acrisure finalized a 15-year deal for naming rights at the stadium that had been known as Heinz Field since it opened. Some uproar occurred after Heinz material, including two giant ketchup bottles, were removed from the stadium, but eventually the Steelers, Acrisure and Kraft Heinz worked out a solution to keep at least one of the bottles at the stadium and preserve the Heinz Red Zone announcement when the Steelers are within the opponents’ 20-yard line.

“I don’t have any problems with the ketchup bottles,” Williams said. “Any mention of the ketchup bottles with the Acrisure name attached, good or bad, was good with me. If it is a good thing for the Steelers, it is good for us.”

Williams said he anticipated some of the initial pushback to Acrisure securing the naming rights, but the naming rights deal has already paid off for Acrisure.

Williams said before the deal, virtually nobody knew what Acrisure was. But after securing naming rights deals in Pittsburgh and an arena in California, as well as running advertisements, Williams said “5% of households can actually tell us what we do, not just that they have heard of us.”

Acrisure has gone from $38 million in revenue 10 years ago to about $4 billion today, and Williams expects the company to continue to have steady growth. Part of that is increasing Acrisure’s name recognition to bring in more clients and more partners.

He said Acrisure provides small middle-market companies with insurance needs as well as cyber security, data analytics, artificial intelligence and other technology-related services. The company has clients and also acquires companies — it has acquired 10 businesses in Pittsburgh and has over 1,000 employees in Pennsylvania, along with thousands of clients in the state.

The Pittsburgh community appears to be coming around to Acrisure.

Right after the naming rights announcement, Acrisure commissioned a poll that showed one-third of Pittsburghers liked Acrisure, another third disliked the company and another third was neutral. Another poll conducted in January showed that 84% of respondents had a positive opinion of Acrisure, according to Williams.

As to how Acrisure secured the naming rights to the stadium, Williams said that local billionaire and Steelers part-owner Thomas Tull was instrumental.

Williams said that he first met Tull in 2019. They connected quickly and formed a $50 million business partnership practically on the spot, Altway Insurance, a direct-to-consumer brokerage platform which is fully supported by artificial intelligence.

He said that grew by 10% each week for 24 weeks straight. Eventually, Williams bought out Tull and folded Altway into Acrisure, but their friendship stuck.

In 2022, Tull contacted Williams and asked him if Acrisure had any interest in buying the naming rights for the Steelers stadium as Kraft Heinz was nearing the end of its deal, which amounted to $57 million over 20 years.

Williams said he spoke with his marketing team while on a short flight between Chicago and Michigan and then, about an hour later, Williams said he was on the phone with Steelers owner Art Rooney and the deal was essentially done.

Williams said he has attended every Steelers home game since Acrisure got the stadium naming rights, except when he was sick.

He said getting even closer to the Steelers with the naming rights deal has taught him more about the “four seasons in Pittsburgh.”

“There is the off season, the preseason, the regular season and postseason,” Williams said.