San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales yesterday announced a
corporate sponsorship proposal that would rename the San
Jose Arena as the Compaq Center at San Jose, according to
John Woolfolk of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS. The proposed
deal would keep the Sharks in town until 2018, a ten-year
extension of their "current commitment" to San Jose, and
provides the city with $72M in additional revenue. But
Woolfolk writes that "one major issue was left on the
table," as San Jose "wants to lure" a pro basketball team to
the arena and "is asking the Sharks to give up the veto
power they currently have." But Gonzales and Sharks
President & CEO Greg Jamison said that no NBA teams "are
looking to move." Under the proposed deal, Compaq would pay
$3.13M annually through the 2015 season for exclusive naming
rights. The Sharks and the city would split the naming
rights revenue evenly. Gonzales said that the naming rights
revenue and contract extension with the Sharks "would boost"
payments to the city from $24M under the current deal to
nearly $97M. Though the deal "still needs approval" from
the San Jose City Council, Gonzales said that he will ask
the Council to formalize the deal at an exec session on
Tuesday. Bill Heil, VP & GM of Compaq's Business and
Critical Server group, said that Compaq is "eager to raise
its visibility in the high-tech capital." Heil: "It's a
competitive price. This building is a pretty cool icon of
technology all across Silicon Valley" (MERCURY NEWS, 10/20).
