“They said, ‘Funny you should call,’” says Doug Moss, Coyotes president and chief operating officer, who also oversees the arena. “’We were just going to be calling you about naming rights.’ That’s how it happened. All from a casual conversation about tickets.”
First, the company was announced as a major sponsor. Then, it also signed papers to have its corporate name attached to the aspiring West Valley facility. “We hit it off right away,” says Moss, who was involved in the negotiations. “It seemed like it was the right fit. It just felt right to all of us.”
By late October, the arena that opened in December 2003 with a city name, amid the strife that was professional hockey at the time, finally had a paying partner. It would be Jobing.com Arena, named after a Glendale company with a broader presence in the marketplace. Reports peg the deal at $2.5 million to $3 million a year for 10 years, terms that team executives will not confirm. They will only say they are pleased with the deal, the partner and the fact that the search is finally over—at least for the next decade.
Just like that, the Coyotes had become the latest of the state’s four professional sports teams to slap a new name on its facades and the like, following days after the announcement made by its Glendale neighbors with the newest showpiece on the block—the Arizona Cardinals.
Industry officials say that the Cardinals deal was one for the record books. The $154.5 million, 20-year agreement with the University of Phoenix is generally regarded as the second highest-naming rights deal in the National Football League, with its $7.7 million annual average price tag behind only the one secured for Reliant Field in Houston.
The Cardinals, no stranger to controversy on-and off-the-field since arriving here in 1988, also caused a stir with its choice of companies on two fronts. The team would be moving from one university stadium to naming its new one after an institute of higher education. And it would be one that had “Phoenix” in its name, despite the stadium’s location in Glendale.
But Ray Artigue, executive director of the MBA sports-business program at Arizona State University, predicts that the naming flap will soon fade like it did with Bank One Ballpark and the America West Arena. “When Bank One was named, people were saying, ‘My, gosh, you can’t name a baseball facility after a bank, that’s so commercial,’” says Artigue, a former Phoenix Suns’ marketing vice president. “They said you can’t name an arena after an airline. What does an arena have to do with an airline? The answer is it doesn’t have to. In a very short time, people didn’t give it a second thought. They came and enjoyed the games. What the building was called was secondary.”
And although the company putting up the big bucks might not like it, Artigue says the general public may not call it by its proper name or even its new one. BOB is still BOB to many, not Chase Field. The same goes for the America West Arena, not US Airways Arena. “A lot of people out there will still refer to it as Cardinals Stadium because that’s what it was for awhile,” he says. “It’s hard to break old habits. And that goes for the Glendale Arena.”
The Coyotes had been seeking a name—and a corporation behind it—for several years. The arena had been shopped along with the nearby Westgate development, which also was looking to attract a naming partner. Steve Ellman was an owner of both the project and the arena.
Officials brought in The Bonham Group, a well-known sports and entertainment company, but that relationship ended this summer when there was a split in ownership. Ellman retained the development; Jerry Moyes became team owner and arena operator.
Rob Yowell, a Bonham Group vice president, says there was interest in the arena before the split, but that there were several stumbling blocks to overcome.
Among these were the lack of big-time companies in the Valley, the uncertainty of the Westgate project and the fact the Cardinals were still across the way looking for a name. Not to mention that hockey was in the doldrums and on strike for a portion of the time.
“We had discussions and people took a look at it,” Yowell says. “But it was like, 'Call me when you’re sure about some of the things that were happening.'”

www.phoenixcoyotes.com
www.azcardinalsstadium.com
www.bonham.com