Toronto's Air Canada Centre to be renamed Scotiabank Arena in 2018
Toronto's Air Canada Centre will be renamed Scotiabank Arena beginning July 1, 2018 after the Canadian bank struck a 20-year agreement with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment worth a reported $800 million (CAD), MLSE announced Tuesday. The news was first reported by TSN's Rick Westhead.
Air Canada - Canada's largest airliner - paid roughly $4 million annually under the previous agreement, according to Westhead.
"To be honest, it wasn’t that difficult to find interested suitors," MLSE chief commercial officer David Hopkinson told Westhead. "This is already firmly established as Canada’s premier entertainment venue. ... We felt we had a very good sense about what the market would bear and Scotia and ourselves have agreed on what that number should look like."
The Air Canada Centre is home to the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, NBA's Toronto Raptors, and NLL's Toronto Rock.