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August 30, 2024

Naming rights for XL Center expire; venue likely to change name in 2025

HBJ PHOTO | GREG BORDONARO The XL Center in downtown Hartford.
By Andrew Larson

The insurance company that owned the naming rights to the XL Center in Hartford for 17 years has ended its contract with Oak View Group, which manages the venue, leaving the facility’s name up for grabs.

XL Catlin, a Bermuda-based insurer and subsidiary of XL Group, renewed its naming rights for the XL Center for five years in 2018. The contract expired on June 30, and XL opted not to renew, said Ben Weiss, general manager at Oak View Group.

XL Group was acquired in September 2018 by Stamford-based insurer Axa, which renamed it Axa XL.

XL bought the naming rights in 2006. Before that, the venue was known as the Hartford Civic Center, which hosted the Hartford Whalers NHL hockey team from 1975 to 1997.

Weiss said the arena will continue to be called the XL Center until the naming rights are sold to a new partner. A change during the upcoming hockey and college basketball seasons would be unlikely, he said.

“We have started the process of actively talking to other interested parties,” Weiss said. “Fortunately, they're happening, and eventually the name is going to change.”

The expiration of the naming rights comes as the Capital Region Development Authority recently approved a $145 million renovation to the XL Center.

The XL Center will remain open during the renovations, which should be completed by early 2026.

Weiss said the timing of the name change is ideal because it gives a new company an opportunity to associate its brand with what will soon be a newly upgraded facility.

“My hope is that within a year we'll have a new brand associated with the building,” Weiss said.

The XL Center’s roughly 16,000-seat arena is home to the Hartford Wolf Pack AHL hockey team, and the part-time home of UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams and men’s ice hockey. It also hosts multiple concerts, shows and exhibitions each year.

The XL Center’s naming rights were worth more than $450,000 this past fiscal year, according to CRDA Executive Director Michael Freimuth. He said CRDA budgeted to fill that gap in June with the adoption of the current fiscal year’s budget.

Weiss said any company interested in the naming rights should contact him.

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