When rookie Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs take the court this season, it will be at the Frost Bank Center.
The Spurs announced with great fanfare Thursday that Frost Bank will be its new naming rights partner for what has been the AT&T Center.
Spurs alum Sean Elliott served as emcee for the announcement at the Eastside arena, which drew a gaggle of media along with leaders from Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SS&E), Frost Bank, the Stock Show and Rodeo and Bexar County elected officials.
The move more closely knits together two storied San Antonio families, the Frosts, who started their eponymous bank in 1868, and the Holts, who own a majority stake in the Spurs.
Officials with both entities declined to share terms of the deal, which had been widely reported by local media. A spokeswoman with SS&E said NBA rules don’t allow the partners to share that information. AT&T’s 20-year naming rights deal was reportedly worth $41 million.
The new agreement is still in the “in principle” stage, according to a release from SS&E, meaning a final agreement, which is subject to NBA approval, has not been signed yet. But the Spurs Coyote seemed unconcerned with that detail as he bounded onto the stage to introduce a video underscoring the 50-year-long partnership between Frost Bank and the Spurs.
The video detailed Frost Bank’s 1973 investment, which was instrumental in bringing the Spurs from Dallas to San Antonio, its status as the first jersey patch sponsor as well as the soon-to-be-opened Frost Plaza at the Rock, the Spurs’ new $500 million training center in Northwest San Antonio.
“The depth of the relationship with Frost is incredible,” said SS&E Chairman Peter J. Holt, and highlights the two entities’ “continued and mutual focus on community impact and having a positive impact on others.”
Holt shared the stage with SS&E CEO R.C. Buford, who got his start with the team as an assistant coach, and Frost Bank Chairman and CEO Phil Green, who said the entities’ shared values “symbolizes what it means to be a San Antonian … to bring people together in the Frost Bank Center and have them join in the joy of sport, and the joy of competition with the rodeo.”
After the announcement, media members were directed to a lower level in the arena to check out the new “Puro Meter” corridor next to the Frost Club, one of the “mini restaurants” on the Charter level of the arena. The corridor features interactive lights in the Fiesta Spurs colors that will change with the volume of fan noise in the arena.
Green said later he has not yet met Wembanyama, the Spurs’ heralded No. 1 draft pick from France, but hopes to, and acknowledged that his joining the team helped spur the bank to finalize the partnership.
“Wemby is the icing on the cake,” he said.
New signage featuring Frost Bank’s “north star” logo, which it has used since the 1970s, will be displayed on the building in time for the first game of the 2023-24 season, Green confirmed.
When asked how the partnership might affect plans to build a new arena district downtown for the Spurs and the San Antonio Missions baseball team, Holt declined to comment.
“Today we’re focused on the Frost Bank Center,” he said.
First known as the SBC Center, the arena was built in 2002 for roughly $193 million. Bexar County voters approved using a tax on hotel rooms and car rentals to raise $175 million of that; the Spurs pitched in the remainder.
Owned by Bexar County and leased to SS&E, the arena underwent more than $100 million in renovations and upgrades in 2015.
AT&T, at the time called SBC Communications, purchased the naming rights for the stadium in 2000. The telecommunications giant announced in 2021 it would not extend the contract, and the Spurs began looking for a new partner. The Spurs and AT&T extended the agreement through the 2022-23 season when the team was unable to close a new deal in time.
Last month, the Spurs announced that Mindy Corr would take over as general manager of the arena. One of just a handful of women who run NBA arenas, Corr takes the helm at a moment of global attention on the team and its number one draft pick.
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