That’s because the 17,071-seat arena in downtown Phoenix is reportedly undergoing another name change. Work crews were seen removing Footprint Center signage from the venue — the longtime home of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury — on Sunday and Monday.
Player 15 Group, the Phoenix-based owner of the Suns and Mercury, has not officially announced the name change.
According to sports industry news site Sportico, a new naming rights deal for the arena is expected to be revealed next year.
It’s the fifth time the venue located at Jefferson and Second street has been rebranded since it first opened as America West Arena in 1992, back when the now-defunct airline still operated.
The venue was renamed U.S. Airways Center in 2006, then Talking Stick Resort Arena in 2014, followed by brief stints as PHX Arena in 2020 and Phoenix Suns Arena in 2021.
Its current naming-rights deal with Gilbert-based company, a manufacturer of plant-based fiber technology, was announced in 2021.
What is the new name of Footprint Center?
The arena’s new name is being kept under wraps at the moment. Calls to Player 15 Group and the city of Phoenix, the owner of the venue, were not immediately returned. Phoenix New Times spoke with workers removing Footprint Center signage at the arena on Monday, but they declined to reveal the new name or comment on the matter.
According to a local Reddit user, the arena’s next name might involve another Arizona business.
In a discussion about Footprint Center’s rebranding in the r/Phoenix subreddit, local Redditor u/ImaginarySalary6017 claimed the arena will soon be known as Western Alliance Center, thanks to a potential naming-rights deal with Phoenix-based Western Alliance Bank.
If true, expect to read a lot of bad jokes on social media about how the longstanding Phoenix arena “is WAC.”
We ran a WHOIS domain search to verify ImaginarySalary6017’s claim, and sure enough, both westernalliancecenter.com and westernalliancearena.com were registered in November.
As another Redditor responded, the new name would be "better than the Sweet James Arena."
