By the time next year’s summer concert season rolls around, the Bank of America Pavilion will have a new sponsor name.
A report in last week’s Boston Globe says Bank of America will drop naming rights of the approximately 5,000-seat outdoor concert theatre down by the waterfront. The deal with Bank of America, according to the Globe, expired yesterday. Signed in 1999, the contract was for 15 years and $5 million, and Bank of America inherited it after taking over FleetBoston Financial in 2004.
The Globe reported that Bank Of America decided to not renew after the deal expired, and Live Nation is in talks with several potential new sponsors. So you can likely forget about a Harbor Lights rebirth.
The bank, based in Charlotte, N.C., has been retrenching since the financial crisis, shuttering branches, cutting jobs, and scaling back its sponsorship programs.
In 2011, the Bank of America did not renew contracts with nine of 10 NASCAR tracks where it had sponsorship agreements.
“This is a great property for a company looking to build brand locally,” T.J. Crawford, a Bank of America spokesman, said about the pavilion. “While we have some named properties in our portfolio, it is no longer part of our brand strategy.”
Live Nation, which owns the pavilion, said it is in talks with a variety of companies interested in buying the naming rights, said spokeswoman Jacqueline Peterson, who declined to name them. Some local and regional banks said they were approached by Live Nation.
Opened in 1994, the white-tent amphitheater was known as Harbor Lights Pavilion for five years until Live Nation purchased it and sold naming rights to FleetBoston Financial, creating the FleetBoston Pavilion. When Fleet merged with Bank of America in 2004, the name changed again.