TD Bank will keep its green-and-white logo in lights at the TD Garden for another 20 years, having signed a new naming rights deal with arena owner Delaware North more than two years before the bank’s existing one was set to expire.
Cherry Hill, N.J.-based TD Bank and Delaware North plan to announce the extension on Thursday. The companies aren’t disclosing the financial terms, although the annual cost likely exceeds the $6 million a year that was initially reported when the current deal took effect in 2005. With the latest extension, TD Bank has committed more than $15 million in community programming over the coming two decades, including a new initiative that provides free concert and special event tickets to individuals or groups from underserved communities, and another one that will commission local artwork to be displayed in and around the arena.
The name of the nearly 20,000-seat TD Garden, home to both the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics, is now set in place until mid-2045.
“Can you imagine having a 40-year-relationship with a naming rights partner?” TD Garden president Amy Latimer said. “It’s a gift to find an organization that is easy to work with [like TD]. ... We have two organizations that were so aligned on how we want to treat our customers, our associates, and our community.”
The talks grew out of discussions between TD Bank and Delaware North about how best to deliver on the existing naming rights deal during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person events weren’t taking place. Latimer said Delaware North didn’t put the naming rights on the market, and instead maintained exclusive negotiations with TD Bank. (The arena hosted about 160 public events in 2022, Latimer said, bringing it close to pre-pandemic levels of activity.)
“We didn’t have to do it early, but why not?” Sheryl McQuade, TD Bank’s New England president, said of the renewal. “We knew we were committed to staying in the partnership. It certainly made sense for us to do it early and to get out ahead of that.”
The naming rights extension also took shape as TD Bank, a subsidiary of Toronto-Dominion Bank, is trying to grow its presence in New England, particularly the Boston area. TD Bank recently opened a new branch in East Boston, with another one opening soon in Jamaica Plain. TD Bank is the fourth largest retail bank in Massachusetts, based on deposit market share, but is seventh in the city of Boston.
“We believe it will be a really good way to leapfrog our growth in Boston,” McQuade said.
The building’s banking ties go back to its construction in the early 1990s as it was being built next to the old Boston Garden. It was originally supposed to be called the Shawmut Center, though by the time it opened in 1995, Fleet had acquired Shawmut and inherited the naming rights. Thus, the FleetCenter was born.
That name lasted for about a decade, until Bank of America acquired what had become FleetBoston Financial, and decided it no longer wanted to sponsor the arena. That’s when Bill Ryan, a banker who led what was then called Banknorth, stepped in. Ryan, a big Boston sports fan, wanted to restore the “Garden” moniker to the arena. He got his wish by signing a new naming rights deal, after Toronto-Dominion acquired a majority interest in Banknorth. The building was known as TD Banknorth Garden for several years, until TD Banknorth and New Jersey-based Commerce Bank merged under the name, TD Bank, and the arena’s name was shortened to its current form in 2009.
“We always like to be correct and clear, that it’s the ‘TD Garden,’ ” McQuade said. “[But] that sentiment, ‘The Garden,’ the legacy name of that is very important.”
