Time Warner Cable Arena’s name is probably going to change — soon

And soon after closing the $55 billion deal, the New York cable giant signaled that it would be phasing out the Time Warner Cable name over time. Charter will be bringing its name and products to Time Warner customers under the brand Charter Spectrum. Not immediately, but at some point in the near future.

But what about Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena?

“The Time Warner Cable name on the arena will stay the same for now,” Charter spokesman Justin Venech said. Note the for now. He did not give any details on when that could possibly change or when the Spectrum brand will make its way to Charlotte.

Mike Cristaldi, a spokesman for the Charlotte Hornets, said he did not have any information about how the merger would impact Time Warner Cable Arena.

But industry experts say the name will likely be changing soon.

Time Warner Cable has had the naming rights since 2008. That’s when the company struck both a naming and TV deal with the then-Bobcats. From the time it opened in 2005 until then, the Uptown arena had just been called Charlotte Bobcats Arena. Cristaldi, the Hornets spokesman, said he could not disclose the terms of the deal TWC has with the Hornets.

In 2008, the average length of an arena naming rights deal was 20 years, said Jim Andrews, senior vice president at IEG, which researches and tracks the sponsorship industry. It’s likely that’s how long Time Warner’s deal with the Hornets is.

Companies strike deals like these as a form of brand advertising. It doesn’t make sense to keep a dead brand name on an arena.

“I would assume that they would change to Charter immediately or in the immediate future,” said Tom Wills, CEO of Bonham/Wills & Associates, which negotiates these types of deals.

Even if the naming rights deal was set to expire soon, Andrews said it’s likely that Charter will change the name quickly anyway rather than wait it out.

“I would think that the most likely scenario is they would go ahead and change the name regardless of what’s left on the term,” he said. “They’re trying to introduce that new brand. They want people who have become very familiar and very comfortable with Time Warner Cable … That says a lot about, ‘We’re committed to this brand and we’re committed to the customers we’re inheriting,’ all of those kinds of things.”

Charter might not be on the hook for all the costs, either

Many naming rights deals even have provisions in the contract that allow for one or two name changes over the life of the deal, Wills said.

It’s worth noting that teams like the Hornets want to limit the number of times an arena changes names, because they can charge less for rights to an arena that has changed names a lot of times.

Changing a name is expensive all around, too. A lot of contracts have built in that the team will pay 50% and the company will pay 50% to change all the signage around the arena, Wills said. That can cost $200,000 and up.

Will the arena name be changed before the Hornets play again this fall?

There’s a very good chance, the industry experts said.

Side note: There is a Charter Spectrum Amphitheatre in Simpsonville, S.C.

Will the Wells Fargo Championship be an example?

Charlotte has been through this before, to some extent. Wachovia was the initial sponsor of the big-time golf tournament down at Quail Hollow Country Club. During the financial crisis, Wachovia was on the brink of collapse before Wells Fargo bought it.

Wells inherited the naming rights to the tournament. But for a few years, they went with the generic name Quail Hollow Championship before rebranding it with the Wells Fargo label (it was the recession, after all). Since then, Wells Fargo has renewed its sponsorship.

That’s probably the best-case scenario for the Charlotte Hornets — for Charter to change the name then extend its contract. Prepare to enter Charter Spectrum Arena.