George Richards, FHN Publisher
The Florida Panthers arena is undergoing another name change but it is not the one many have been anticipating.
Instead of rebranding the BB&T Center with the bank’s new name of Truist, the Sunrise arena — which has been the Panthers’ home since 1998 — will be now known as FLA Live Arena.
The Panthers, chief commercial officer Shawn Thornton said, are actively looking for a new naming rights partner for the arena although it will be known as FLA Live Arena for the 2021-22 season.
“We are announcing to the world that we’re open for business and looking for a new naming rights partner,” Thornton said.
“We have already had conversations with a few but I can’t get into who. We are looking for an innovative partner moving forward.”
The Panthers and BB&T/Truist had another year left on their naming rights deal, so why change the name of the arena now?
As has been the case with the merger between SunTrust and BB&T, well, it’s complicated.
THE MANY NAMES OF THE SUNRISE ARENA
This will be the arena’s fifth name not counting the Broward County Civic Center which is what the building was called during construction.
When the building opened for business in 1998, it was known as the National Car Rental Center after the company owned by then-Panthers’ owner H. Wayne Huizenga.
The Panthers had a partnership relationship with BankAtlantic when it replaced Office Depot as the naming rights partner in 2005.
BB&T took over when it purchased the Fort Lauderdale-based bank in 2012.
With SunTrust and BB&T merging and becoming Truist, the thought was the Sunrise arena would simply become the Truist Center, or, as team president Matt Caldwell told FloridaHockeyNow last year, Truist Arena.
The BB&T sponsorship deal runs through June 30, 2022 and it had an option for a five-year extension.
The Panthers wanted to renegotiate the financial terms of the extension — since the team’s ownership inherited the deal from previous owners — but had trouble working with the banking giant due to the complications of its own merger deal.
Time was running out.
The two sides finally agreed to end the naming rights agreement after the 2021-22 season and forgo the extension.
WHY CHANGE THE NAME?
So, why not keep the name BB&T Center for one more year?
The Miami Heat, for instance, kept the AmericanAirlines name on its arena for almost two years after its naming deal expired.
Well, Truist is the new name of the combined banks.
Both the SunTrust and BB&T names will officially be retired as of Feb. 1, 2022.
Truist does not want the BB&T or SunTrust name on anything after that date.
And that date comes right in the middle of the Florida Panthers season.
So, instead of calling the arena ‘BB&T’ for the first half of the season and then changing it to ‘Truist’ for the second, the bank told the team to simply take its name off the arena at the beginning of the season.
Renaming the arena Truist for one year, while working on getting a new corporate sponsor for next season, did not make much sense either.
Truist, meanwhile, is paying the Atlanta Braves $10 million per year for the naming rights for the formerly-named SunTrust Park.
That name change change came quickly, however, as the Braves changed it soon after the two banks announced their new shared name.
“We wanted to amend and extend with them at a higher number,’’ Thornton said. “That went back-and-forth for a while and didn’t really work out. We were trying to work this out for the past year but they never could give us an answer because there were so many layers to their own merger.
“They felt bad about how the past year went so they told us to just take the name down even though they’re paying for this year. So, this gives us a year to announce to the world that we have an opening for naming rights. It works out for both of us.”
The Panthers plan to have the BB&T signage removed from the arena by the start of October and have the new stuff up for their season opener Oct. 14 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Panthers hope to have a new corporate naming partner in place for the 2022-23 season.
NAMING RIGHTS GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Naming rights deals for arenas, obviously, is a very lucrative business for professional sports teams.
The 10-year deal the Panthers signed with BankAtlantic in 2005 was reportedly worth $20 million. BB&T renewed the naming-rights deal when it took over BankAtlantic nine years ago.
The New York Islanders recently signed a deal with investment bank UBS to put its name on the team’s new arena at Belmont Park for a reported $300 million over the next 20 years.
Think that’s a lot? CNBC reports Intuit signed a 23-year agreement worth more than $500 million to put its name on the Los Angeles Clippers’ palace under construction in Inglewood..
The Panthers are not going to get that kind of money.
Locally, AmericanAirlines ended its naming rights deal with the City of Miami in 2019 but when the city couldn’t find a replacement, the name stayed in place for two years with the city paying the Heat $2 million directly due to contractual obligations.
This past June, the city signed cryptocurrency exchange firm FTX to be the naming rights holder to the downtown arena in a 19-year deal worth $135 million.
The Marlins went almost a decade without a corporate sponsor on their ballpark in Little Havana before signing loanDepot prior to this season.
Financial terms of that deal have still not been disclosed.
The Miami Dolphins’ stadium in Miami Gardens has undergone more name changes than any other sports venue in South Florida since opening in 1987.
In 2016, Hard Rock purchased the naming rights to the renovated facility for a reported $250 million.
Inter Miami CF also reached a naming agreement with AutoNation for its soccer facility on the former Lockhart Stadium grounds in Fort Lauderdale.
That leaves the Panthers as the only South Florida professional sports team looking for a naming rights sponsor — and that has Thornton excited about the potential for new business.
“The landscape has changed in the past year,” Thornton said.
“There would have been three of us (Marlins, Inter Miami) in the market. Now it is just us. There has been a lot of migration from north-to-south recently and I think we’re going to get a lot of inbounds when this goes public.
“We’re in a good spot. We’re trending in the right direction. We’re on the up-and-up.”
NAMING HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA PANTHERS’ SUNRISE ARENA
Broward County Civic Center (construction)
National Car Rental Center 1998-2002
Office Depot Center 2002-05
BankAtlantic Center 2005-12
BB&T Center 2012-21
FLA Live Arena 2021-present
