After the Seattle Storm’s brief interlude with splitting its home schedule between Alaska Airlines Arena at the University of Washington and Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett, the Storm will return to the venue it has called home for its entire existence.
When the Storm return to said arena, it will not go by its previous namesake as KeyArena. As far as what the venue will be called, could we soon be calling the new stadium “Amazon Arena?”
What about “The Amazon Center?” Or “The Prime Garden?”
According to a report from Sports Business Journal, Seattle-based Amazon is the leading candidate to land naming rights to the new arena with two others, that were not named in the report, also in the running. It also says those rights are worth in the range of $14 million and also that all three are new to the naming rights game.
Amazon will eventually have a robust presence in at least two incumbent WNBA markets as it announced the Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington, Virginia as the site of its much-ballyhooed second headquarters.
The Storm extended its lease with the City of Seattle to remain at the new arena through the 2028 season. The city agreed to shell out $100,000 to Force 10 Hoops, the Storm’s ownership group, for every season the team is not playing in the new venue.
Oak View Group and NHL Seattle (which remains nameless as of today) recently unveiled that one of the features of the venue will be the Alaska Airlines Atrium, the main entrance to the stadium made mostly of glass and billed as a gathering place for fans.
Oak View’s Tim Leiweke dismissed Sports Business Journal’s report as “speculation,” per Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times.
Construction of the new arena is slated to be complete by summer of 2021.
