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Covelli finalizes naming rights contract with Youngstown arena
YOUNGSTOWN
Covelli Enterprises signed a $1.05 million, five-year contract extension to keep the naming rights for the downtown sports-and-entertainment arena.
The center and the company announced Tuesday the contract, retroactive to May 1, was finalized. The company has had the naming rights at the Covelli Centre since May 2009.
The deal calls for the business to pay $200,000 annually to the city-owned center for the first three years and then $225,000 a year for the final two years. The company has paid $200,000 annually for the naming rights the past three years.
A year prior, Covelli paid $175,000, and paid $120,000 annually between May 1, 2009, and April 30, 2011.
“When our company agreed to put our name on the center in 2009, we did it because of our commitment to the community and our belief in Eric Ryan [the center’s executive director], and his team to turn the center around,” said Sam Covelli, owner and chief executive officer for Covelli Enterprises. “In the past seven years, with the overwhelming support of this community what has happened at the center has exceeded my expectations.”
Ryan said, “We are privileged to be associated with the Covelli family’s distinguished legacy and work hard every year to honor that legacy with an event schedule that provides the best possible entertainment to our Valley.”
He added, “The Covelli family is first and foremost very prideful to be from and part of the Valley and that is certainly evident in their numerous charitable endeavors.
It is in that spirit of ‘giving back’ in which they wholeheartedly invest of themselves to assist in making the Covelli Centre a success with additional support in our event marketing, moral support and the overall pride they have in our Valley.”
Before Covelli, the facility was called the Chevrolet Centre with General Motors paying $175,000 a year for three years. The GM contract, signed in late 2005 when the center opened, expired three years later. The Chevrolet name stayed on the building for about six more months at no cost to GM before Covelli – the nation’s largest franchisee of Panera Bread and O’Charley’s Restaurants – negotiated a deal for the naming rights. When Covelli started its naming-rights contract with the center, the facility was coming off a year with a $310,435 operating deficit. It finished last year with a $372,954 operating surplus.
“With world-class acts, the center has become not only operationally profitable, but has also improved the quality of life for the people of this great community,” Covelli said. “We are excited to be able to our part in helping the center grown with our naming-rights renewal and our continued efforts in marketing and promoting the center in our stores.”