Player 15 Group, parent company of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, is seeking out a new arena naming rights partner after environmental technology company, Footprint, elected to end its deal early.
The home arena of the two basketball teams was rebranded as Footprint Center back in July 2021 as part of a wide-ranging partnership. Talking Stick Resort had previously held naming rights to the arena but its deal with the Suns ended in 2020.
Footprint, which is based in Gilbert, Arizona, is said to have struck a 10-year contract for naming rights but will now downgrade its level of involvement to a lower tier of sponsorship. Phoenix Suns senior vice-president of communications, Stacey Mitch, told the Arizona Republic that the team “has begun the process to find a new naming rights partner.”
She added: “We were presented with a unique opportunity to reimagine and strengthen our partnership with Footprint to better align with their mission and commitment to sustainability and innovation.”
As well as granting Footprint naming rights to the Suns’ arena, the original deal included product integration and sought to raise awareness of plant-based fibre alternatives to plastic. It was hoped the partnership would lead to the arena becoming a carbon-neutral, plastic-free arena.
Sportico said Footprint, which will remain as the official sustainability partner of the Suns and Mercury, has reevaluated its sports-related investments after seeing its valuation drop nearly 38% following the collapse of a planned merger with special-purpose acquisition company Gores Holding VII in 2022. This prevented the company from going public.
The 18,000-seat arena will be known as PHX Arena moving forward, with Player 15 confident of securing a new partner ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season. Dan Costello, executive vice-president and chief revenue officer of the Suns and Mercury, said: “I expect for us to command significant investment based on the major events that are coming here and that will continue to come here.
“As long as we have things like All-Star games, tourism and impact from a population growth perspective, this will be a place where brands want to align.”
Cavaliers’ home takes on new identity
In other naming rights news, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is rebranding to Rocket Arena.
The change aligns with the brand restage of naming rights partner Rocket, which has unified its mortgage, real estate and personal finance businesses under the ‘Rocket’ name. The arena renaming marks the most visible, impactful and permanent element of the Rocket brand refresh to date.
Founded in 1985, Rocket was the first of Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s ‘Family of Companies,’ and has become one of the most widely known names in US housing and finance. The downtown arena, commonly known as ‘The Q,’ was called Gund Arena, after former owner Gordon Gund, for its first 11 years, before being renamed Quicken Loans Arena when Gilbert bought the Cavaliers in 2005.
In 2019, the arena underwent a $185m (£146.9m/€177.3m) transformation, unveiling its new identity as Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
