County taking proposals for Times Union Center
Newspaper declined to renew contract for venue’s naming rights
The county on Thursday put out a request for proposals for the naming rights to what will soon no longer be the Times Union Center.
The Times Union decided last month not to renew its current five-year contract to have the newspaper’s name on Albany County’s sports and entertainment arena downtown. The Times Union’s name had been on the arena since 2007.
The $68 million venue opened under its original name, the Knickerbocker Arena, on Jan. 30, 1990. In 1997, it became the Pepsi Arena.
The naming rights agreement with the Times Union called for it to pay the county $350,000 annually, while also providing expanded advertising for the center in its print and digital products.
How response will go to the request for companies to submit naming proposals is unclear. In 2006, Albany County reached out to the Times Union and other local businesses to see if they would be interested in naming rights, after getting no responses to a request for bids it put out as the Pepsi naming deal was ending.
Pepsi had paid $300,000 annually for the name alone, as well as marketing, promotional money and pouring rights worth $4.5 million.
Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy said in a release Thursday that “potential bidders attended a preproposal conference with a tour of the facility at 51 South Pearl Street in Albany earlier today.”
He also said the county has had “so many local and international companies exploring the idea of putting their name on our building and partnering with the county.”
“Today is the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Albany County’s arena,” Mccoy said in a statement. “I’m hopeful that with this RFP we can generate even more interest from others as we move forward and continue to improve the arena and make it better than ever before.”
The county said the arena, which seats between 6,000 and 17,500 people, averages 145 events each year.
Sealed proposals for the naming rights are due by Monday, Nov. 1.