Izod Center officials are "talking about removing the name from the 20,000-seat arena in the Meadowlands" as it prepares to shut down at the end of March, according to Ted Sherman of the Newark STAR-LEDGER. New Jersey Sports & Exhibition Authority President & CEO Wayne Hasenbalg said, "I do expect the signage will come down. We are getting cost estimates ... and trying to ascertain who pays for all or a portion of those costs." Sherman notes the Izod name, which "went up on the side of the building more than seven years ago" as part of a $1.2M-a-year sponsorship, still "has yet to fade, despite the termination of the naming rights agreement with the sportswear company more than two years ago." Hasenbalg said that since '12, when the agreement expired, there "have been no further payments from Izod." A separate deal with Internet phone company Vonage, which was paying more than $1M to "put its name on the concourse of the Izod Center, also ran out of string when the Nets left." Hasenbalg: "All sponsorship deals have expired." Since the announcement of the arena's closing, Phillips-Van Heusen, which owns Izod, "has not made any requests to remove the Izod name." Meanwhile, Hasenbalg said there are "hundreds of other close-out tasks" as the arena prepares to shut its doors. Hasenbalg: "It made no sense to take it down before [Super Bowl XLVIII], or before we knew what we were going to do with the building" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 3/13).
