McKale Center at ALKEME (pronounced like alchemy) Arena is the new name of the home of Wildcat basketball and other indoor sports, after ALKEME Insurance signed a 15-year deal with the U of A.
While other sports venues drop their former names when they sell naming rights (even the UA’s own Arizona Stadium became Casino Del Sol Stadium), the McKale name, which comes from UA sports legend Pop McKale, was too iconic to abandon, says Athletic Director Desireé Reed-Francois.
“Having McKale as part of the name, we were not going to ever give that away, and so we were really fortunate that there was a values alignment with ALKEME,” Reed-Francois said at a news conference Friday.
ALKEME Insurance is a nationwide brokerage founded by four UA alumni, including CEO Curtis Barton, who said during Friday’s conference that he hopes to engage with Eller College of Business to make students aware of opportunities at the company.
“We're going to teach and guest lecture and do as much as we can to create opportunities, job fairs. Anything we can do to get the students to look at the insurance industry and us more in particular would be an awesome opportunity for us,” Barton said.
The $27.7 million dollar arrangement runs for 15 years, Reed-Francois said, but the parties agreed to a “look-in” at the five-year mark, in which give them a chance to evaluate how well the partnership is meeting their goals.
The deal comes three months after the U of A sold naming rights to Arizona Stadium to Casino del Sol for $60 million.
