Featured image credit: AT&T Center
Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SS&E), parent company of NBA franchise the San Antonio Spurs, has agreed a short-term extension to its arena naming rights deal with telecommunications company AT&T, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
The newspaper, citing multiple sources, said AT&T has agreed to extend its contract into the forthcoming 2022-23 NBA season as the Spurs continue to seek a new sponsor.
“They are still talking to a few folks,” one source told the Express-News. “But for now, it’s still going to be the AT&T Center.”
In November 2021, SS&E appointed Legends Global Partnerships to seek a new naming rights sponsor for AT&T Center.
The naming rights are currently on the market for the first time in the venue’s 20-year history. The arena opened in 2002 as the SBC Center before becoming AT&T Center in 2006 following SBC Communications’ rebrand to AT&T.
AT&T’s deal had expired following the 2021-22 NBA season and Legends was selected to represent SS&E in securing a new sponsor for the arena. A new deal was due to begin in the autumn of 2022.
AT&T severed its official ties to the Spurs through the June 2021 announcement that Sixth Street, a leading global investment firm, and Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, had joined the franchise’s investor group as strategic partners. AT&T’s minority stake of around 7% was reported to have been part of the 30% stake acquired by Sixth Street and Dell.
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